by Devin Hanson
He woke the next day before Jules did for the first time since they had left Andronath. Moving quietly, he slipped out of the shelter and relieved himself then went back in to check on Jules. Her face was flushed red and hot to the touch.
Andrew dug around in his pack until he found a spare shirt and tore a sleeve off. After folding it into a pad he soaked it with water and laid it gently over her forehead. Jules murmured something and shifted, but didn't wake up.
Worried, he stepped out and paced, trying to remember what his mother had done when he had burned himself as a child. It was hard, most of the memories were of the pain on his arm, but he did remember his mother changing the bandages.
Back into the shelter. He rolled his bedding up and moved the campfire over so he could have room to work next to Jules without being cramped. He carefully unwrapped the bandages, wincing every time the cloth stuck to a torn blister then sluiced her hand down with water. With the old bandages, he carefully patted the more-intact areas down then reapplied the salve. Fresh bandages wrapped loosely finished the job.
"You have gentle hands," Jules whispered, startling him.
"Oh, good morning. I didn't know you were awake. I think I did it right?"
"You did just fine, Andrew." She closed her eyes again and Andrew thought she had fallen asleep again before she said, "How much water do we have left?"
Andrew held up the last of his waterskin. "A mouthful or two. Thirsty?"
She nodded, and he held the skin for her while she drank. When the last of the water went down her throat she lay back and opened her eyes. "I feel much better now, but I don't think I want to get up."
"It looks like you're running a fever," he guessed.
"Probably." She paused again then sighed. "You're going to have to get us more water."
"Last night you said you had a way?" The trip down the mountain to the stream would be an all-day journey, arduous and dangerous without someone to watch his back. There was a very real chance that a dragon would spot him and be on him before he had a chance to hide under his cloak. Though, if it came to it, he would make the journey.
"Yes. In my pack."
Andrew had gone through her pack almost item by item. There wasn't anything in it that he could tell would magically make water. "Are you sure?"
She coughed. "Course I'm sure. It's folded up, looks like a fan, I guess."
Andrew turned back to her pack and eventually found what she was talking about. It was shaped like a lady's fan but the folds were metal lacework, with delicate runes running up the ribs. He opened it all the way and found the folds of the fan surrounded a central tube that hinged down and clicked into place.
"It pulls water from the air," Jules explained slowly. "Stick the tube into the waterskin and put it somewhere where a good breeze is blowing. It will take a while to fill and you have to keep an eye on it to make sure the fan stays open to the wind."
"Okay. I'll be right back." Andrew left the shelter and wandered around a bit before he found a spot where the rocks funneled the gusting wind between them. He gathered a few pieces of scree and propped the waterskin up with them before settling the fan in the neck of the skin. A last rock braced the fan open toward the wind. He stepped back and watched it for a minute to make sure it wouldn't fall over. Satisfied, he returned to Jules.
"I have it set up now."
"Good." She swallowed against a dry throat. "I should have had you set it up last night, I'm already thirsty again."
"Don't blame yourself. You weren't exactly in peak condition."
"You're right," Jules sighed. "Well, aren't we a sorry pair. A grand adventure indeed."
"I don't know, this has been pretty adventurous for me. A week ago I was hauling dung off the mountains with the worst collection of human beings you could hope to find. Today, I find myself in the company of a noble woman learning to draw runes."
"Quite a step up."
"Indeed."
She smiled. "I'm happy you're having fun, but this is time we can't afford to lose. The brooder may be nearing the end of her hunting cycle. If we can't find her lair before she settles in to lay her eggs, we'll never find it."
"I can still watch for her," Andrew suggested.
Jules coughed. "You'll have to. I won't be much use to you. Take my spyglass. I'll call you if I need something."
"You're sure you'll be fine?"
Jules rolled her eyes. "Get out of here. I'll be less fine if you miss the brooder."
"You'll call if you need anything?"
"Tiny gods, you're worse than my mother."
With a strained smile, Andrew grabbed her spyglass and left the shelter. He checked on the water and found the skin was already swelling around the bottom. He took it back to Jules, endured her chiding until he could collect the other waterskin and get out. He set up the water trap again; strangely, proof that the trap worked raised his spirits considerably.
He went to the southern cliff and settled on a comfortable rock, tucking the edges of his cloak down about him. The view was breathtaking and he gave himself a few minutes to enjoy it. Far below him, a herd of mountain goats bounded from rock to rock. That gave him an idea and he peered through the spyglass until he found what he thought was the spot where the brooder had almost landed on him.
From there, he could play it through in his mind and figured the dragon had come from the right. He swiveled to the right, remembered he had been facing the other direction, and swiveled back to the left.
Of course there was no guarantee that the dragon hadn't been hunting about the area for a while, but that group of goats would be a tempting target. A hungry dragon that knew where food was bound to be found wouldn't beat about the bush; she'd go straight for the herd and help herself.
Or so he hoped.
He followed the valley that ran between peaks with his eyes, slowly rising upward until it dwindled out at the base of a long spine of mountains marching east to west crowned with snow. From what Jules had said, the eggs had to stay hot. No dragon in their right mind would lay eggs in the snow, so they wouldn't have to hike all the way up there. A comforting thought. He didn't think they'd make it that far, let alone all the way back.
Besides, even a dragon would find that journey a long one. No, it would be closer. An hour's flight, maybe two. He sighed. Like he could get into a dragon's head and figure it out that way. No, Jules was right. They'd have to spot the brooder then watch her to see where she went.
It was probably safe to assume it hadn't come from over by Andronath, though he swung the spyglass that way just to make sure. The city was the same, except now there was an airship docked at one of the towers looking like a fat black water beetle clinging to a stick.
He examined it for a few minutes, growing more and more certain that it was the airship that had tracked them down. The Storm Shadow. He felt a small disappointment that it had managed to outrun the dragon chasing it. If only they could be so lucky. The airship didn't look like it was going anywhere, so he turned his attention back to the mountains.
The mountains sitting directly behind Andronath were well-documented. No dragon nest lay there. He swung the spyglass to the east, examining the mountains across the plains. They were smaller mountains, barely qualifying the name and only growing larger as they approached the one he sat on. Andrew knew from his time as a gunny that those mountains were barren of dragon dung. No dung, no dragons. The nest wasn't over there either.
He shifted around and trained the spyglass on the mountains to the west. After the initial foothills, the mountains rose steeply, though not high enough to sport snow until further to the north. That area was prime dragon nest area, though he sincerely hoped his brooder hadn't nested in that direction. It would take days for them to hike that far. Weeks, even. They didn't have that kind of time. Besides, game was plentiful in these mountains. A dragon wouldn't have to come so far to find food.
"Hungry?"
The question snapped Andrew's head up in surp
rise. He spun around and found Jules standing behind him. She had left her cloak at the shelter and was wearing a tight leather vest buckled over a silk shirt with sleeves billowing in the wind. Expensively tailored pants tucked into her high boots completed her ensemble, but all Andrew could see was the lack of her cloak.
"What? Where's your cloak?" he scrambled to his feet. "And what are you doing out of bed?"
She waved her bandaged hand at him. "You sound like my father. 'Why are you wearing pants, you should do knitting, not runing.' Pfft."
"I'm serious." Andrew peered at her, saw how her eyes were dilated. "Are you drunk?"
"No. I brought some painkillers. I'm feeling wonderful now, thank you very much." She did a little spin for him. "Do you like my pants?"
"What? Sure. Yes. Seriously, though, it's not save without your cloak."
"Like a dragon is going to fly all the way up here looking for food. It's all down in the valley. Besides," she pouted, "I'm hot."
"You're feverish, that's why."
"You a doctor too, Runemaster?"
Andrew rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's get you back into the shelter. If it's too hot in there, I'll move the fire outside." He considered putting his hand on her waist to help steer her then decided against it. She was in a weird mood and didn't want to upset her by being too forward.
She was moving on her own, though, so he let his hand fall back to his side. As they climbed the slight slope to their shelter, Andrew's stomach growled.
"See," Jules said, "If I hadn't come to get you, you would have sat out there all day."
They paused to recover the wind sieve, as Jules called it. Jules was facing Andrew when he saw a flicker of fast movement along the side of the next mountain over. He took two steps forward and threw his cloak around her, wrapping both of them in his cloak. To keep it closed, he had both arms around her shoulders, for all the world like he was hugging her.
"So, this is awkward," Jules whispered. "Is there a dragon, or did you really like my pants after all?"
Andrew hissed at her to be quiet and tilted his head back slowly until the edge of his hood left the tiniest window to see through. He caught another glimpse of the dragon and there was no mistaking the brooder as she drifted in the air currents and only flapping her wings once every few seconds to stay in the air.
"It's her!" he whispered, excited.
Jules spun around in his arms before he could warn her not to and parted the folds of his cloak so she could peer through. Andrew suddenly found himself in an difficult position of having her bottom pressed into his crotch and his arms folded, out of necessity! across her chest.
He cleared his throat, but Jules apparently hadn't noticed. "Look at her!" she sighed. "I must say, I almost didn't believe you had found that scale yourself. But she is most definitely a brooder. Near the end of her feeding cycle, too. Only a few days left before she seals herself into her nest to lay her eggs."
Andrew managed to adjust his arms so he wasn't actively pressing against her breasts. "She's hunting on the next peak over," he guessed, watching the way the dragon's head was pointing toward the other mountain.
"Let's watch!" Jules started walking forward, and Andrew had no choice but to follow her or let her push free of his arms and into the open.
"Your cloak--"
"No time! Come on!"
Moving in a shuffle that embarrassed Andrew but only annoyed Jules at its slowness, they made their way to the northern side of the peak. Once they had a clear view of the valley below, Jules ducked out of his arms and lay on the ground with the spyglass fixed to her eye.
"Still not safe," Andrew complained.
"Busy," Jules replied.
With a sigh, Andrew got on the ground next to her and threw an arm over her shoulders, making sure both her legs were covered.
"I swear," she commented, "you've made up how sharp dragon eyesight is just so you could get us into these situations."
"And you've been an idiot, forcing me into it."
"Oho, the gunny grows a backbone too. Before you know it, you'll be a real man."
Andrew couldn't come up with a smart reply then the fascination of watching the brooder hunt took over and he forgot all about it. The dragon moved with a certain powerful elegance, her wings shining in the sun a gleaming copper.
"She's not going to find anything," Jules decided a minute later.
Andrew didn't have the spyglass, but he guessed the game had hidden in time. With a powerful burst of speed, the dragon abandoned her hunt and shot across the valley at dizzying speed. Andrew couldn't even begin trying to measure how fast she was flying in terms of horses running.
"She's going to crash!" Jules gasped.
At the last second before impact into the mountainside, the dragon snapped her wings open and braked her headlong rush, turning her forward momentum into a vertical spiral up and away from the mountainside. A goat was clutched in her claws.
They watched in silence as the dragon lazily gained altitude and drifted out of sight around the next mountain.
Andrew let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.
"Okay, I take it back," Jules said, "if anything, you've been underestimating their eyesight. She saw that goat from clear across the valley."
"Will you wear your cloak now?"
"You've convinced me."
They made their way back to the shelter and Jules sketched out a rough map in the dirt. "Here's our mountain." She made a circle in the dirt, and threw a rough compass down next to it. "The dragon made her kill here," another mountain, this one directly to the north, "and you first saw her hunting around here." A third mountain, about two-thirds of the way to the northern peak and the same distance removed horizontally. "We lost her past this mountain." A fourth sketch, forming the rough points of a diamond, or the tips of a cross.
"The first time I saw her," Andrew added, "she came from the east. Along this path." He drew a line arcing around their mountain from right to left, fading out as it turned north.
"And this time she came around this peak," a loose curve around the bottom of the left mountain, coming to a point at the bottom of the northern mountain and then trailing off as it passed out of sight around the right mountain.
Andrew studied the map they had drawn and sketched in a few other peaks. "These are the other mountains surrounding where we've seen the brooder. My guess is she's got her nest somewhere to the north of us."
"At least we know which direction to watch in now," Jules agreed.
Chapter 15
Rune Saying
Andrew prepared lunch for both of them as he studied the map over Jules' shoulder. "How's your hand doing, by the way?"
She flexed it and winced. "Better. I applied a new layer of salve while you were gone and the painkillers are keeping everything manageable."
Andrew handed Jules her share of hardtack, cheese and sausage and set about cutting his own. "I'm surprised it's that much better."
"It's an alchemical salve, so it makes it heal faster."
"I thought you said alchemy couldn't affect living tissue?"
"I did say that, and it doesn't. The salve is two parts, I guess. One part aloe and other such herbs. Typical burn remedy stuff. The other part, the alchemical part, sucks the heat of the burn out of the tissue. Most burns take so long to heal because the stored heat keeps the cells from repairing themselves."
"Isn't that affecting living tissue though?"
Jules shrugged. "It's like applying a snow pack. Feels cold. And I guess the tissue it's effecting is dead, huh?"
"Hey, as long as it works," Andrew sighed. "I'm no doctor. As much as I wished I was."
"Well, this makes three times you've saved my life," Jules smiled at him through a mouthful of food. "At the rate you're going, I'll be so indebted to you my father will be a pauper."
Andrew flushed and ducked his head. "It's not like that…"
"If I had known chasing dragons would be so dangerous I would
never have come out here," Jules said thoughtfully. "Though now that we're out here, we can't very well turn back. What would Milkin say?"
"Probably, ‘Thank the gods you're still alive.' Or something."
Jules ignored him. "I have my reputation to uphold. Can't very well come back empty handed. Not after throwing Trent's advances back in his face like that. He'd bring me up before the Council of Lords. Claim I was endangering the succession or something. He'd have me married within the hour."
"It's a good thing trying to chase a dragon down without a cloak on isn't endangering the succession-- Wait. Succession? Succession to what?"
Jules grumbled something under her breath.
"No, you can't back out on this now."
"It's nothing. A joke."
"Don't lie to me. It isn't nothing!"
Jules shrugged. "Really it isn't important. My mother was King Delran's younger sister. Half-sister, at that."
"But that's... that's…"
"Nothing. I might as well be a milkmaid. The king has a son and an older brother. Hell, I have an older brother too. For me to be even considered for the throne, the king and his son have to die, along with the prince's wife, then the king's older brother has to die and his wife, then my father has to die, then my brother and his wife have to die. All before any one of them have more children of their own. Forget it. I'm never going to be queen. Thank the gods."
"But Trent?"
"Trent is a slimy sack of larvae. A puddle of rotten fecal scum. But if he could convince the Council that I had to be made safe, they could force me to marry."
"There isn't anyone in line for succession after you?"
"Of course. My father has a younger brother. He would be. And there are a slew of second cousins and whatnot that would be in line after that."
"Trent wants to get himself in line for succession then?"
Jules laughed. "As it is, half the nation would have to die before Trent found himself on the throne. Putting a ring on my finger would jump him forward at least three hundred places."
"And put him ninth in line for succession."