Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Robin Hobb

  Mercor held an odd sway over the others, one Tats did not completely understand. In their serpent incarnations, he had led their “tangle.” It surprised Tats that a loyalty from a previous life prevailed still. But when Mercor had proclaimed that the flighted dragons must hunt only on the far side of the river, and leave the game on the village side alone so that the keepers might better provide for the grounded dragons, no one, dragon or keeper, had protested. Now the other dragons watched him limbering his wings, and Tats hoped that if Mercor made a successful flight, they would all become more willing in their efforts.

  Once the dragons could fly and hunt, life would become easier for all of them. The keepers would also be able to transfer their lives to Kelsingra. Tats thought of warm beds and hot water and sighed. He lifted his eyes again to watch Fente in flight.

  “It’s hard to let go of her, isn’t it?”

  He turned reluctantly at Alise’s question. For a moment he was stricken, thinking she had seen to his core and knew how he pined for Thymara. Then he realized she spoke of his dragon, and he tried to smile at her. The Bingtown woman had been quiet and grave of late, and distant. It was almost as if she had returned to being the stranger among them, the fine lady from Bingtown who had startled all the Rain Wild keepers when they had first discovered she was a member of their expedition. Initially, she had competed with Thymara for Sintara’s attention, but Thymara’s competence as a hunter had soon won Sintara’s belly if not her heart. Nevertheless, Alise had created her own place in the expedition company. She did not hunt, but she had helped groom and tend dragon injuries as best she could. And she had known things, information about dragons and Elderlings that had helped them along the way. For a time, it had seemed she was one of them.

  But Alise had not been chosen as keeper by any of the dragons, and Rapskal’s declaration that the city belonged to the keepers had thrust her to one side. Tats still winced when he thought of that stark confrontation. When they had first reached Kelsingra, Alise had asserted her authority and decreed that nothing must be touched or changed until she had had a chance to thoroughly document the dead city. Tats had simply accepted her rule, as had the other keepers. It surprised him now to realize how much authority he had ceded to her simply because she was an adult and a scholar.

  But then had come the confrontation between her and Rapskal. Rapskal had been the only one of the keepers with free access to the city. His dragon, Heeby, had been the first to take flight, and unlike the other dragons, she had not minded carrying a passenger on her back. Heeby had provided passage to the city for Alise many times. But when Rapskal and Thymara had ventured to the city to explore and had returned the next day with a trove of warm Elderling garments to share with the other ragged keepers, Alise had been incensed. He had never seen the genteel Bingtown woman so angry. She had cried out to them that they must put the garments down “this instant and stop tugging at them.”

  And that was when Rapskal had defied her. He had told her, in his direct way, that the city was alive and belonged to the Elderlings, not to her. He had pointed out that he and his fellow keepers were Elderlings while she was and would remain a human. Despite his own heartbreak that day, despite seeing Thymara beside Rapskal, Tats had felt a flash of deep pity for Alise. And a stripe of shame and regret to see her so quickly retreat and withdraw from their company. When he thought about it now, he felt a bit guilty that he had not at least knocked at her door to ask if she was all right. He had been nursing his own heartbreak, but still, he should have gone to ask after her. The truth was, he hadn’t even noticed she had been missing until she reappeared.

  Did her effort at conversation mean she had recovered from Rapskal’s rebuke? He hoped so.

  He smiled at her as he replied, “Fente has changed. She doesn’t need me as she once did.”

  “Before long, none of them will.” She was not looking at him. Her gaze tracked his dragon across the sky. “You will all have to start thinking of yourselves in a different way. Your own lives will come to have more significance to you. The dragons will take command of their own fates. And probably ours as well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Now she looked at him, a direct look with her brows raised as if startled that he did not immediately grasp what she had told him. “I mean that dragons will rule the world again. As they used to.”

  “As they used to?” Tats echoed her words as he followed her toward the riverbank. It had become a new habit for all of them; the keepers and the flightless dragons gathered in the morning on the riverbank to discuss the day’s tasks. He glanced around and for a moment was seized by the beauty of the scene. The keepers were gleaming figures in the fleeting morning mist, for all wore their Elderling garments daily now. Their dragons were scattered across the hillside and along the bank. They were limbering their wings, beating them hard against the meadow grass, or stretching out necks and legs. They, too, gleamed brilliantly against the dew-heavy grasses of the wet meadow. At the bottom of the hill, Carson had given over his efforts with Spit and waited for them, Sedric at his side.

  The leadership had evolved, Tats realized. For all Rapskal’s charismatic speech when he had returned from Kelsingra, he had not assumed the command as Tats had thought he might. Probably because he was not interested in being a leader. He was handsome and cheerful, beloved by his fellows, but most of them spoke of him with a fond smile rather than deep respect. Rapskal remained as odd as he had always been, introspective one moment and bizarrely social the next. And happy with who he was. The ambition that would have burned inside Tats was not even a spark to him.

  Carson was by years the oldest of those who had taken on a dragon. It seemed natural to cede authority to him, and the hunter did not shirk from it. For the most part, Carson assigned the daily tasks to the keepers, a few to groom and otherwise tend to the remaining dragons, and the rest of them to hunt or fish. If a keeper protested that he had a different task in mind that day, Carson did not let it become an issue. He recognized the keepers’ individuality and did not attempt to impose his authority on them. As a result, all seemed to accept it.

  Alise had quietly claimed some of the menial but necessary tasks of daily living. She tended the smoking racks that preserved fish and meat for them, gathered edible greens, and helped groom the dragons. Sylve, never the most successful hunter, had turned her energies to the preparation of meals. At Carson’s suggestion, the keepers had returned to large shared meals. It was strange but nice to return to the communal meals and talk they had shared when they were moving the dragons upriver.

  It made him feel a bit less lonely.

  “As they used to, and will again,” Alise continued. She glanced over at him. “Seeing them in flight, watching all of you change . . . it puts a different light on all that I discovered in the course of my early studies. Dragons were the center of the Elderling civilizations, with humans a separate population that lived apart from them, in settlements like the ones we found here. Humans raised crops and cattle that they traded to Elderlings in exchange for their wondrous goods. Look at the city across the river, Tats, and ask yourself, how did they feed themselves?”

  “Well, there were herds on the outskirts of the cities. Probably places to grow crops . . .”

  “Probably. But humans were the ones to do that. Elderlings gave themselves and their lives over to their magic, and to tending the dragons. All they did and built and created were not for themselves, but for the dragons who overshadowed them.”

  “Ruled them? The dragons ruled them?” He wasn’t enjoying the images in his mind.

  “Ruled isn’t quite the right word. Does Fente rule you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “And yet you gave your days over to hunting for her, and grooming her and otherwise caring for her.”

  “But I wanted to do those things.”

  Alise smiled. “And that is why ruled is the wrong word. Charmed? Englamoured? I’m not sure quite how to express it, but you
do already know what I mean. If these dragons breed and bring more of their kind into the world, then inevitably they will end up running the world for their own benefit.”

  “That sounds so selfish!”

  “Does it? Isn’t it what humans have done for generations? We claim the land as ours and turn it to our purposes. We change the channels of rivers and the face of the land so that we can travel by boat or grow a crop or graze cattle. And we think it only natural that we should shape the whole world to be comfortable and yielding for humankind. Why should dragons be any different in how they perceive the world?”

  Tats was quiet for a time.

  “It may not be a bad thing at all,” Alise observed into his silence. “Maybe humans will lose some of their pettiness if they have dragons to contend with. Ah, look! Is that Ranculos? I would not have believed it possible!”

  The huge scarlet dragon was in the air. He was not graceful. His tail was still too skinny, and his hindquarters flimsy for his size. Tats was about to observe that he was only gliding after a launch from a higher point, but at that point the dragon’s wings began to beat heavily. And what had been a glide turned into labored flight as he gained altitude.

  Tats became aware of Harrikin. The tall slender keeper was racing down the hillside, almost in his dragon’s shadow. As Ranculos beat his wings and gained altitude, Harrikin cried out, “Ware your course! Bank, bank your wings left! Not over the river, Ranculos! Not over the river!”

  His cry was thin and breathless, and Tats doubted that the huge dragon heard him at all. If he did, he paid him no mind. Perhaps he was full of exhilaration; or perhaps he had decided to fly or die trying.

  The red dragon lumbered into the sky, his hind legs dangling and twitching as he tried to pull them up into alignment with the rest of his body. Some of the other keepers were adding their voices to Harrikin’s now. “Too soon, Ranculos, too soon!”

  “Come back! Circle back!”

  The red dragon ignored them. His labored efforts carried him farther and farther from the shore. The steady beat of his wings became an uneven flapping.

  “What is he doing? What is he thinking?”

  “Silence!” A trumpeted blast of sound and thought from Mercor quenched them all. “Watch!” he commanded both humans and dragons.

  Ranculos hung suspended, wings wide now. His uncertainty was plain. He tipped and teetered as he began a wide circle, losing altitude as he did so. Then, as if realizing that he was closer to Kelsingra than the village, he resumed his course. But his weariness was evident now. His body drooped between his wings. The intersection of dragon and river became both obvious and inevitable.

  “No-o-o-o!” Harrikin’s low cry was a sound of agony. He stood stiffly, hands clutching at his face, his nails sinking into his cheeks as he stared. Ranculos’s glide carried him farther and farther from the village. Below him, the gray river’s greedy current raced relentlessly. Sylve gave Mercor a cautious glance, and then ran to stand beside Harrikin. Lecter plodded down the hillside toward his foster brother, his broad shoulders slumped as if he shared Harrikin’s desperation and already knew the outcome.

  Ranculos began to beat his wings, not steadily but in frantic desperation. Their uneven rhythm tipped and tilted him. He fluttered like a fledgling fallen too soon from the nest. His destination was the far side of the river, but despite his battle with the air, all knew he could not attain it. Once, twice, thrice his wingtips scored white on the river’s face and then his drooping hind legs snagged in the current and the waters snatched him from the sky, pinwheeling him wide-winged into the grayness. He slapped his wings uselessly against the water. Then he sank. The river smoothed over the spot where he had fallen as if he had never been.

  “Ranculos. Ranculos!” Harrikin’s voice went shrill and childish as he fell slowly to his knees. All eyes watched the river, hoping for what could not be. Nothing disturbed the rushing waters. Harrikin stared, straining toward the water. His hands went into fists as he shouted, “Swim! Kick! Fight it, Ranculos! Don’t give in. Don’t give up!”

  He lurched to his feet and took a dozen steps toward the water. Sylve, clutching at him, was dragged along. He halted and looked wildly about. Then a shudder passed over him, and “PLEASE! Please, Sa, not my dragon! Not my dragon!” The blowing wind swept his heartbroken prayer to one side. He fell to his knees again, and this time his head bent and he did not rise.

  A terrible silence flowed in as all stared at the empty river. Sylve glanced back at the other keepers, useless horror on her face. Lecter moved forward. He set one heavily scaled hand upon Harrikin’s lean shoulder and bowed his head. His shoulders heaved.

  Tats stared silently, sharing his agony. Guiltily, he stole a glance at the sky. It took him a moment to locate Fente, a winking green gem in the distance. As he watched, she dived on something, probably a deer. Unaware or uncaring? he wondered. He looked in vain for either of the other two dragons. If they realized that Ranculos was drowning, they gave no indication of it. Was it because they knew there was nothing anyone could do? He did not understand the seeming heartlessness of dragons toward one another.

  And sometimes, toward their keepers, he thought as the blue beauty that was Sintara abruptly swept across his field of vision. She, too, was on the hunt, skimming the distant hills on the other side of the water, unmindful of either Thymara standing alone on the shore or Ranculos perishing in the river’s icy grip.

  “Ranculos!” Sestican bellowed suddenly.

  Tats saw Lecter’s head come up. He spun and then stared in horror as his blue dragon began a lumbering gallop down the hillside. Sestican opened his wings as he ran, baring the bright orange tracery on his blue wings. Lecter left his collapsed brother and began his own run on a path that would intercept his dragon, bellowing his pleas for him to stop. Davvie ran after him. The big blue dragon had been practicing flight assiduously, but even so, Tats was astonished when he suddenly leaped into the air, snapping his body into arrow-straight alignment and gaining air with every beat of his wings. Although he cleared his keeper’s head, he was barely a wing span above the river’s surface as he began his attempt to cross. Lecter dissolved in hoarse screams of “No! No! You’re not ready yet! Not you, too! No!”

  Davvie came to a halt beside him, both hands crossed over his mouth in horror.

  “Let him go,” Mercor said wearily. There was no force behind his words, but they carried to every ear. “He takes the risk that each of us must chance, sooner or later. To stay here is to die slowly. Perhaps a swift drowning in cold water is a better choice.” The gold dragon’s black eyes swirled as he watched Sestican’s ponderous flight.

  The wind whispered across the meadow, scattering rain as it came. Tats squinted, grateful for the wetness on his cheeks.

  “But perhaps not!” Mercor trumpeted abruptly. He reared onto his hind legs as he turned his gaze far downriver to stare at the opposite shore. Several of the other dragons mimicked him. Harrikin shot suddenly to his feet as Spit exclaimed, “He’s out! Ranculos crossed the river!”

  Tats strained his eyes but could see nothing. The rain had become a gray haze, and the area the dragons observed was a warren of Elderling buildings crumbling into the water. But then Harrikin exclaimed, “He is! He’s out of the river. Bruised and battered, but he’s alive. Ranculos is alive in Kelsingra!”

  Harrikin suddenly seemed to notice Sylve. He swept her into his arms and spun with her in a giddy circle, crying, “He’s safe! He’s safe! He’s safe!” Sylve joined her laughter to his joyous cries. Then, abruptly, they stopped. “Sestican?” Harrikin cried. “Lecter! Lecter!” He and Sylve set off at a run toward Lecter.

  Lecter’s blue dragon had neared the far shore. He arched his body, bending his head and shorter front legs down toward his suddenly dangling back feet, touched the ground with all four feet, wings wide, and for one instant, his landing was graceful. Then his speed betrayed him, and he tumbled in a somersault, wings still open. A mixed chorus of cheers,
groans, and a few hoots of laughter met his clumsy landing. But Lecter gave a wild shout of joy and jumped into the air. He spun, froggy grin wide, to confront those who had laughed, demanding, “And can your dragons do better?” He spotted Davvie and caught his lover in a crushing hug.

  A moment later, his foster brother and Sylve had engulfed them both in a wild embrace. Then, to Tats’s astonishment, Harrikin plucked Sylve free, spun her once, and then, as he landed her, kissed her deeply. The gathering keepers were shouting joyously as they converged on them.

  “It all changes,” Alise murmured quietly. She watched them embrace, saw them caught up in the mob of their friends, and then turned back to Tats. “That’s five now. Five dragons in Kelsingra.”

  “Ten left here,” Tats agreed. Then he added, as he saw that Harrikin and Sylve still held each other, oblivious to the whooping crowd around them, “It has changed. What do you think of it?”

  “Do you believe what I think matters to them?” Alise asked him. The words could have sounded sour, but her question was sincere.

  Tats was silent for a moment. “I think it does,” he said at last. “I think it matters to all of us. You know so much of the past. Sometimes, I think you can see more clearly what may become of us . . .” He faltered as he realized his words might seem unkind.

  “Because I am not one of you. Because I only observe.” She spoke the words for him. As he nodded dumbly, embarrassed, she laughed aloud. “It does give me a perspective that perhaps you lack.”