Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Robin Hobb

  “What were they . . . ?” Tats began, and then a long wailing cry rose and fell again. Another answered, and it was not distant now, but coming closer.

  Thymara knew what wolves were. They did not live in the Rain Wilds, but even so, in the old tales that people still told, wolves were the ravening predators that made people shiver in the night. Her imagination, she now saw, had been insufficient for the task. They were huge creatures, red tongued and white toothed, shaggy and joyous in their blood-thirst. They poured along the game trail, five, six, eight of them, running flat out, and yet somehow still managing to give tongue to their hunt. It was not a howl, but a yipping, wailing call that told all that meat would soon be theirs.

  As the intervening trees and branches blocked them from sight and their hunting calls began to fade, Tats climbed down past her, and then jumped with a thud to the ground. She sighed and shook her head. He was right. After that cacophony, no game animal would remain anywhere in their vicinity. She followed him down and called out in annoyance, “You’re going the wrong way!”

  “No, I’m not. I’ve got to see this.” Tats had been walking. Now he broke into a jog, following the same trail the elk and the wolves had taken.

  “Don’t be stupid! They’d be just as happy to tear you to pieces as those elk, or whatever they were!”

  He didn’t hear her or he didn’t care. She stood a moment, wondering if her fear or her anger was stronger. Then she started after him. “TATS!” She didn’t care how loud she yelled. There was no game left in this area anyway. “Carson told us to hunt in twos! Those wolves are exactly what he warned us about!”

  He was out of sight, and she stood still for one indecisive moment. She could go back and tell Carson and the others what had happened. If Tats came back, it would seem childish tale carrying. If he didn’t, she would have let him go to his death alone. Teeth clenched, she put her bow on her back and took an arrow into her hand as if it were a stabbing spear. She hiked her tunic up and tucked it into its belt and set out running.

  Running was not a skill the tree-raised children of the Rain Wilds practiced much. She’d become a better runner since coming to this place, but it still felt almost dangerous. How did one run and remain aware of one’s surroundings? How could she listen when her heart was pounding in her ears, or scent anything when panting through her mouth?

  The game trail wound along the ridge, avoiding the densest brush and threading its way through the groves of trees. Tats, she discovered, was a strong and swift runner. She did not even see him for a time, but followed the trampled trail the immense deer had left.

  When the game trail left the ridge and plunged across a steeper slope toward the river, she caught her first glimpse of Tats. He was running, bow gripped in one hand, head down, free hand pumping. She lifted her eyes and saw, not the hunt, but swaying brush that told of the fleeing animals. The whining excitement of the wolves carried back to her and infected her with something of their frenzy. She tucked her chin to her chest, tightened her wings to her back, and ran, bounding in leaps as the slope of the trail became steeper. “Tats!” she called again, but breathlessly and without carrying power. The trail suddenly twisted, heading up the slope again. She gritted her teeth and pounded on.

  Lifting her head, she saw Tats ahead of her. He had paused at the crest of the hill. “Tats!” she yelled, and this time she saw him turn his head. He stood still, and much as she would have liked to slow down, or even to drop to a walk and catch her breath, she pushed herself to run up the hill.

  As she reached his side, she found herself both breathless and speechless. Tats, too, stood staring down and across the hillside before them.

  The hunt had gone on without them. The deer and their pursuers must have leaped across the extremely steep slope before them. The whole hillside was pocked with hoofprints and flung earth. Below them, the remains of an Elderling road paralleled the game trail for a short distance before turning toward the river. From their vantage point, Thymara could see that the road ventured out onto the ruins of a bridge, where it ended abruptly in jagged timbers and tumbled stone. Once that bridge must have spanned the river, a feat that seemed impossible now: she could glimpse the other end of the bridge on the far side of the river, similarly truncated.

  Far below the ragged end of the bridge’s arc, the river foamed and boiled. On the near shore, the road that once must have joined to the bridge approach was a succession of broken surfaces. Trees had encroached, and parts of the road had broken and slid down as the river gnawed at the shores. Of the roadway that should have led to their current village, there was no sign. Long ago the river had shifted in its bed to devour it, and then shifted back, ceding its place to tussocky meadow.

  “They’ve got them cornered,” Tats announced. “The wolves must know this place. They’re driving the deer right out to the end.”

  He was right. Her eyes found first the fleeing animals and then, through a screen of trees, the wolves behind them. She glanced back at Tats, only to discover that he was sliding down the steep slope. He’d started out in a crouch, but soon sat down abruptly and slid. He vanished from sight in the rough brush that cloaked the lower slope.

  “Are you STUPID?!” she yelled angrily after him. Then, cursing herself for a bigger fool than he was, she followed him. His passage had loosened the scree, and rain had made the earth slippery. She kept her feet longer than he had, but eventually fell over on one hip and slid the rest of the way, earth and brambly brush bunching up against her as she went down. He was waiting for her at the bottom.

  “Be quiet!” he cautioned her, and then held out a hand. Grudgingly she took it and let him pull her to her feet. They scrambled up a short slope and suddenly found themselves out in the open on a section of the old road.

  Nothing now blocked their view of the drama in front of them. The wolves were indeed driving the deer. Decorative stone walls framed the bridge’s approach, funneling the deer out onto it. The lead animal, swifter than the other two, had already realized his error. He’d reached the end of the sheared-off bridge and now moved unsteadily, his huge head casting back and forth as he looked for some safe passage down. There was none. Far below him, the waters raged past.

  One of the other animals was limping badly and had fallen behind. The second beast was still running, apparently unaware that they had been driven to a drop-off. As they watched, the pack of wolves poured out onto the bridge. Unlike their prey, they did not slow or hesitate.

  The lagging animal was engulfed. It went down, a single shriek its only protest. One of the wolves clamped its jaws onto the staggering animal’s throat, as two others seized its hind legs. A fourth jolted into its shoulder and it went down and then over as yet another wolf went for its belly. It was all over then, long legs kicking hopelessly as it vanished under its attackers.

  The second deer, spurred by the scream of the dying animal, raced forward. Oblivious, or blinded by panic, it reached the end of the bridge and leaped off.

  The lead deer had come to bay. The largest of the three, he rounded on his pursuers. There were only three of them now, for the rest of the pack were engrossed in the creature they’d already pulled down. The immense deer shook his head, menacing them with the memory of his antlers, and then stood tall, waiting. As the first wolf slunk in, the deer spun and kicked out with his hind legs, scoring a hit on the first wolf, but a second rushed in, to get under him and then turn his ravening jaws up to his belly. The deer hopped awkwardly, but he could not break the wolf’s grip, and as he struggled to get away, the last wolf sprang for his throat. By then, the first wolf was on his feet again. Thymara was astonished when he sprang from the ground, landed on the deer’s back, and then darted his head in to bite right behind his prey’s head. The great deer staggered another two steps, and then folded onto its front knees. He died silently, trying to walk away even as his hindquarters collapsed. As he fell over, Tats let out a pent breath.

  Thymara realized she still had hold of
his hand. “We should get out of here,” she said in a low voice. “If they turn around, there’s nothing between them and us. And no place for us to run where they can’t run faster.”

  Tats didn’t take his eyes off the scene before him. “They’ll gorge themselves and they won’t be interested in us.” He suddenly snapped his gaze skyward. “If they get a chance,” he added.

  Sintara fell on them like a blue thunderbolt, striking the thick huddle of wolves tearing at the first deer they had downed. The weight of her impact sent carcass and wolves sliding across the bridge deck to fetch up against the stone wall. She rode them, her rear talons set firmly in the carcass, her front claws tearing at the wolves as they went. By the time they slammed into the wall, she had closed her jaws on a wolf and lifted it aloft. Others, yelping in pain, sprawled in a trail behind her. None of them would hunt again.

  A fraction of a breath behind her, Fente hit the other deer and the three wolves that had killed it. Her strike was not as fortuitous. One wolf went spinning off the end of the bridge, and her impact sent the carcass flying after him. The other died in a screaming yelp while the third, ki-yi-ing in fright, fled back the way they had come.

  “Tats!” Thymara shrieked the warning as the creature galloped toward them, but in one motion he swept her behind him with one arm while brandishing his bow like a staff. As the animal came on, it grew impossibly large, until she abruptly realized it truly was that big. If it had stood on its hind legs, it would have been taller than Tats. Jaws wide, tongue hanging red, it raced directly at them. Thymara sucked in a breath to scream, but then held it as the terrified wolf suddenly veered past them and scrabbled up the steep slope, to disappear in the brush.

  Belatedly, she realized she had a tight grip on the back of Tats’s tunic. She released it as he turned and put his arms around her. For a time they held each other, both shaking. She lifted her face and looked over his shoulder. “It’s gone,” she said stupidly.

  “I know,” he replied, but he didn’t let her go. After a time, he said quietly, “I’m sorry that I slept with Jerd. Sorry in a lot of ways, but mostly that it hurt you. That it made it harder for us to . . .” He let his words trail away.

  She took a breath. She knew what he wanted to hear and what she couldn’t say. She wasn’t sorry she had been with Rapskal. She didn’t think it had been a mistake. She wished she had considered the decision more coolly, but she found she could not tell Tats she was sorry for having done it. She found other words. “What you and Jerd did had nothing to do with me, at the time. At first I was angry about it because of how I found out, and how stupid I felt. Then I was angry because of how Jerd made me feel. But that’s not something you could have controlled or—”

  “Of course! We’ve been so stupid!”

  She stepped away from him to look up at his face, affronted. But he wasn’t looking at her, but past her, at the truncated bridge. She tried to see what had startled him. Sintara was still there, feeding on deer and wolf carcasses. Fente was gone, as was the sole dead wolf that had been the only fruit of her strike. She’d probably gulped it down and taken flight. As she watched, Fente came suddenly into view, rising up from beyond the tattered end of the bridge. The slender green dragon beat her wings steadily, rising as she flew across the river. Halfway across, she banked her wings sharply and flew upstream, gaining altitude as she went.

  “Why are we stupid?” Thymara demanded, dreading his answer.

  He took her by surprise when he exclaimed, “This is what the dragons have needed all along. A launching platform. I bet that half of them could fly across the river today if they launched from here. At the very least, they’d get close enough that even after they hit the water, they could wade out on the other side. They can all fly a bit now. If they could get across, soak in the baths, chances are that they could relaunch from that end of the bridge and have a better chance of flight. And hunting.”

  She thought carefully about it, measuring the bridge ends with her eyes and thinking over what she’d seen the dragons do. “It would work,” she agreed.

  “I know!” He seized her in his arms, lifted her up against his chest, and whirled her around. As he set her down, he kissed her, a sudden hard kiss that mashed her lips against her teeth and sent a bolt of heat through her body. Then, before she could react or respond to his kiss, he set her down and stooped to pick up the bow he had dropped when he embraced her. “Let’s go. News like this is more important than meat.”

  She closed her mouth. The abruptness of the kiss and Tats’s assumption that something had just changed between them took her breath away. She should have pushed him away. She should run after him, throw her arms around him, and kiss him properly. Her hammering heart jolted a hundred questions loose to rattle in her brain, but suddenly she didn’t want to ask any of them. Let it be, for now. She drew a long breath and willed stillness into herself. Let her have time to think before either of them said anything more to each other. She chose casual words.

  “You’re right, we should go,” she agreed, but she lingered a moment, watching Sintara feed. The blue queen had grown, as had her appetite. She braced a clawed forefoot on the deer, bent her head, and tore a hindquarter free of the carcass. As she tipped her head back to swallow, her gleaming glance snagged on Thymara. For a moment she looked at her, maw full of meat. Then she began the arduous process of getting the leg down her gullet. Her sharp back teeth sheared flesh and crushed bone until she tossed the mangled section into the air and caught it again. She tipped her head back to swallow.

  “Sintara,” Thymara whispered into the still winter air. She felt the briefest touch of acknowledgment. Then she turned to where Tats waited and they started back for the village.

  “This is NOT what you promised me.” The finely dressed man rounded angrily on the fellow who held the chain fastened to Selden’s wrist manacles. The wind off the water tugged at the rich man’s heavy cloak and stirred his thinning hair. “I can’t present this to the Duke. A scrawny, coughing freak! You promised me a dragon man. You said it would be the offspring of a woman and a dragon!”

  The other man stared at him, his pale blue eyes cold with fury. Selden returned his appraisal dully, trying to rouse his own interest. He had been jerked from a sleep that had been more like a stupor, dragged from belowdecks up two steep ladders, across a ship’s deck, and down onto a splintery dock. They’d allowed him to keep his filthy blanket only because he’d snatched it close as they woke him and no one had wanted to touch him to take it away. He didn’t blame them. He knew he stank. His skin was stiff with salt sweat long dried. His hair hung past his shoulders in matted locks. He was hungry, thirsty, and cold. And now he was being sold, like a dirty, shaggy monkey brought back from the hot lands.

  All around him on the docks, cargo was being unloaded and deals were being struck. He smelled coffee from somewhere, and raised voices shouting in Chalcedean besieged his ears. None of it was so different from the Bingtown docks when a ship came in. There was the same sense of urgency as cargo was hoisted from the deck to the docks, to be trundled away on barrows to warehouses. Or sold, on the spot, to eager buyers.

  His buyer did not look all that eager. Displeasure was writ large on his face. He still stood straight, but years had begun to sag the flesh on his bones. Perhaps he had been a warrior once, but his muscles had long turned lax and his belly was now heavy with fat. There were rings on his fingers and a massy silver chain around his neck. Once perhaps his power had been in his body; now he wore it in the richness of his garb and his absolute certainty that no one wished to displease him.

  Certainly the man selling Selden to him agreed with that. He hunched as he spoke, lowering his head and eyes and near begging for approval.

  “He is! He’s a real dragon man, just as I promised. Didn’t you get what I sent to you, the sample of his flesh? You must have seen the scales on it. Just look!” The man turned and abruptly snatched away the blanket that had been Selden’s sole garment. The blus
tery wind roared its mirth and blasted Selden’s flesh. “There, you see? See? He’s scaled from head to toe. And look at those feet and hands! You ever see hands like that on a man? He’s real, I promise you, lord. We’re just off the ship, Chancellor Ellik. It was a long journey here. He needs to be washed and fed up a bit, yes, but once he’s healthy again, you’ll see he’s all you want and more!”

  Chancellor Ellik ran his eyes over Selden as if he were buying a hog for slaughter. “I see he’s cut and bruised from head to toe. Scarcely the condition in which I expect to find a very expensive purchase.”

  “He brought that on himself,” the merchant objected. “He’s bad tempered. Attacked his keeper twice. The second time, the man had to give him a beating he’d remember, or risk being attacked every time he came to feed him. He can be vicious. But that’s the dragon in him, right? An ordinary man would have known there was no point starting a fight when he was chained to a staple. So there’s yet another proof for you. He’s half dragon.”

  “I’m not,” Selden croaked. He was having trouble standing. The ground was solid under his feet; he knew that, and yet the sensation of rising and falling persisted. He’d lived too long in the hold of a ship. The gray light of early morning seemed very bright to him, and the day very chilly. He remembered attacking his keeper, and why he’d done it. He’d hoped to force the man to kill him. He hadn’t succeeded, and the man who had beaten him had taken great satisfaction in causing him as much pain as he could without doing deadly damage. For two days, he’d scarcely been able to move.

  Selden made a lunge, snatched his blanket back, and clutched it to his chest. The merchant fell back from him with a small cry. Selden moved as far from him as his chains would allow. He wanted to put the blanket back around his shoulders but feared he would fall over if he tried. So weak now. So sick. He stared at the men who controlled him, trying to force his weary brain to focus his thoughts. He was in no condition to challenge either of them. To which would he rather belong? He made a choice and changed what he had been about to say. He tried to clear his throat and then croaked out his words. “I’m not myself right now. I need food, and warm clothes and sleep.” He tried to find common ground, to wake some sympathy from either man. “My father was no dragon. He was from Chalced, and your countryman. He was a ship’s captain. His name was Kyle Haven. He came from a fishing town, from Shalport.” He looked around, hoping desperately as he asked, “Is this Shalport? Are we in Shalport? Someone here will recall him. I’ve been told I look like him.”