City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles

by Hobb, Robin

  Hungry. His dragon pushed her complaint into his mind, driving away every other thought.

  I know you are, my beauty. I’ll remedy that as soon as I can. Let me wake up a bit first.

  Hungry all night. Hungry today. You sleep too much.

  You are right, little queen. I will do better. Sometimes it was just easier to agree with Relpda than to argue with her. The little copper dragon was demanding, imperious, and as thoughtless as a child of anyone else’s needs.

  She also worshipped him and depended on him as no creature ever had before. And he had fallen in love with the jealous, selfish, and spiteful little creature. “Little,” he said aloud as he buttoned his shirt and laughed at himself. Little only in comparison to the other dragons. Feeding her was becoming next to impossible. He was fortunate that Carson’s fish trap continued to supply a steady stream of fish. Without a daily morning ration of that, he knew that Relpda would have made his life miserable. As it was, he was feeling not just his own hunger pangs but hers, too.

  He looked at the hearth. Hanging in the chimney, above the flames and in the smoke, were several sides of bright-red fish. The smoke both cooked and preserved the meat. It also added its own aromatic note to the various smells in the cottage. He was so tired of smelling things. He took his worn cloak from the hook by the door and gave it a shake before swinging it around his shoulders. Time to get the day started. Things to do. Haul water for washing and cooking. Feed his dragon, feed himself. But first he’d find out what it was that Carson was attempting to do. The tapping had become an uneven pounding.

  He walked around the corner of the house to find Carson wrestling with a rough wooden frame. He had stretched a piece of leather over it, hooking it over pegs tapped into the sides. This “window” was what he was trying to force into the opening. As Sedric approached, the brittle leather split. “Damn the luck!” Carson cursed, and he threw frame and leather to one side.

  Sedric stared at his partner as he directed a kick at the unsatisfactory construction. “Carson?” he asked hesitantly.

  The word jerked the hunter’s attention to Sedric. A sudden flush suffused his face. “Not now, Sedric! Not now.” He turned and stalked off, leaving Sedric staring after him in astonishment. He’d never seen Carson so out of temper, let alone expressing it in such a childish way. It summoned unwanted memories of Hest. Except that Hest would have turned his anger on me, not stalked off to brood, he thought. Hest would have made it all my fault, for speaking to him.

  He walked over to Carson’s abandoned project, picked up the frame, which was not much damaged by the kick, and regarded the stretched leather thoughtfully. He felt a pang of guilt as he recognized what it was. Leather scraped so thin that it still allowed light in but kept out wind and rain. Leather scraped of all hair and dried hard, so it would not smell as strongly. This was Carson’s response to Sedric’s complaint about the window coverings. Sedric scratched his stubbled chin, considering. He’d complained, with no thought that Carson would take the complaint as a criticism, or put so much thought and effort into trying to remedy things.

  He was still holding the frame when he heard footsteps behind him. Carson took the window out of Sedric’s hands, saying gruffly, “It was supposed to just slide into place, so you’d wake up to light. But the opening is too far out of square. I wanted it to be a surprise for you, but it’s not going to work. I know how to do it, but I don’t have the right tools. I’m sorry.”

  “No. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to complain so much.”

  “You’re used to better. A lot better than this.”

  There was no arguing with that statement. “But that’s not your fault, Carson. And when I complain, well, I’m just complaining. I don’t mean that it’s up to you to make things better. It’s just . . .”

  “You’re not comfortable here. I know that. You’re used to better, Sedric. You deserve better, but I don’t know what I can do about that.”

  Sedric choked back a laugh. “Carson, it’s not as if anyone else has an easier life than we do. When the boat comes in, things will be better.”

  “Only a little bit. Sedric, I watch you. I see how tired you are of all this. And it worries me.”

  “Why?”

  Carson gave him an odd look. “Perhaps because I was there when you made a very sincere effort to take your own life. Perhaps because I worry that the next time you try it, I might not be there. And you might succeed.”

  Sedric was shocked. “I’m a different person now! I’m stronger than that,” he objected. Carson’s words had stung him, yet he could not have said why. An instant later, he knew. “You think I’m weak,” he accused the hunter before he had known he would say the words.

  Carson lowered his eyes and shook his shaggy head. His response was reluctant. “Not weak, Sedric. Just . . . not tough. Not in the way that deals with hardship that just goes on and on and on. It doesn’t make you a bad person, just—”

  “Weak.” Sedric chose the word for him. He hated that Carson’s comments hurt so badly, hated worse the sting of tears in his eyes. No. He wasn’t going to weep over this. That would only prove him right. He cleared his throat. “I have to go to the fish trap and get something for Relpda. She’s hungry.”

  “I know. So is Spit.” Carson shook his head as if tormented by gnats. “I think that’s part of why I’m out of temper today. It’s not you, Sedric. You know that.” He spoke the words almost pleadingly. He shook his head again. “That damn Spit. He knows he can make me feel his hunger. He pushes it at me. It puts me on edge all the time. It makes it hard to think and harder to be patient, even with a simple task.” Carson jerked his head up and met Sedric’s stare. There was determination in his eyes. “But I’m not going to take him food. Not yet. I’ve got to let him be hungry, hungry enough to try to do something about it. He’s a lazy little bastard. He should be trying harder to learn how to fly. But as long as I’m around to feed him every time he gets a hunger pang, he isn’t going to put any real effort into it. I’ve got to let him suffer a bit or he’ll never learn to take care of himself.”

  Sedric pondered his words. “Do you think I should do the same with Relpda? Let her be hungry?” Even as he spoke the words aloud, he felt his dragon become aware of the thought.

  No! I don’t like to be hungry. Don’t be mean to me!

  “I know it seems harsh,” Carson said, almost as if he, too, had shared Relpda’s thought. “But we have to do something, Sedric. It can’t go on this way. Even if I hunted morning until night every day and was successful in every hunt, it wouldn’t be enough to feed them all. All of them are hungry, all the time, some more than others. But there’s a limit to what we keepers can do. The dragons need to make the effort to fly and to feed themselves. And they need to do it now, before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  Carson looked grim. “Look at them, Sedric. They should be creatures of the air, but they are living like ground animals. They aren’t growing properly. Their wings are weak, and on some they’re simply too small. Rapskal had the right of it. From the time he first took charge of Heeby, he made her try to fly, every day. Look at her some time and compare the lines of her body to those of the other dragons. Look where the muscle is developed and where it’s not.” He shook his head. “Trying to get Spit to exercise his wings is difficult. He’s willful, and he knows full well that he’s bigger and stronger than I am. My only handle on him is food. He knows my rule. He tries to fly. And then I feed him. He has to try every day. And that’s what the other dragons have to do. But I don’t think they will until they’re forced to it.”

  Not liking Carson.

  But we know it’s true, Relpda. You’re too big for me to keep you fed. I know how hungry you get. I bring you food, but it’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough until you can fly and make your own kills. We both know that.

  Falling hurts.

  Being hungry hurts, too. All the time. Being hurt from falling will stop once you
learn to fly. But if you don’t learn to fly, the hurt of being hungry will go on always. You have to try. Carson is right. You have to try harder, and you have to try every day.

  Not liking YOU, now.

  Sedric tried to mask how much that hurt his feelings. I’m not trying to hurt you, Relpda. I’m trying to get you to do what you have to do in order to, well, to be a full dragon.

  I AM a dragon! The force of her incensed thought nearly drove him to his knees. I am a dragon, and you are my keeper. Bring me food!

  In a while. He hoped she could not sense that he was deliberately making her wait. His own stomach rumbled in protest.

  Carson gave him a sideways glance. “You should eat something.”

  “I’d feel guilty to eat while she goes hungry.”

  Carson sighed. “It’s not going to be easy. But I’ve been thinking about it for some days now. Left to themselves, the dragons are just not trying that hard to learn. Right now we can get enough fish in our traps to keep them from starving. And we’ve had a few windfalls, such as Heeby being willing to drive game for them. But we can’t count on things like that. The fish run could dwindle or end any day. And the more we hunt locally and Heeby hunts close to our camp, the less game there will be. These are big predators with large appetites. They need to expand their hunting territory and they need to be able to feed themselves. Otherwise, this area will simply turn into a second Cassarick for them. We didn’t come all this way to allow that to happen.”

  Sedric listened in chilled dismay. Now that Carson laid it out so clearly, he wondered how he could not have seen it for himself. Because I’ve been like the dragons, he thought. I thought it would just go on as it had before, with the keepers finding meat for them all, no matter what.

  His stomach growled again and Carson laughed, sounding almost like himself. “Go eat something. The smoked fish should be done enough. And take something to Relpda.”

  “Are you going to take something to Spit?”

  Carson shook his head, not in denial, but at himself. “Yes. Eventually. But not until I’ve shown him that he can’t push me around. He has a different temperament from Relpda. That little silver has a streak of mean and resentment that your copper doesn’t have. It’s not just toward the other dragons. It’s for all the keepers, too. It’s for anyone who is whole and functioning when he isn’t.”

  “I thought she could only carry one rider at a time.” Thymara was still uncertain about this whole venture.

  Rapskal looked down at her from Heeby’s shoulders. “She has been growing. Bigger and stronger. And her wings keep growing most of all. She says she can do this. Come on up.” He bent at the waist and leaned down to stretch his hand out toward her. He was grinning at her in a way that was obviously a challenge. She couldn’t back down now. She reached up to grip his wrist as he seized hers. There was nothing else to hold on to. All of Heeby was gleaming and overlapping crimson scales, smoother than polished stone. She scrabbled up the dragon’s shoulder, worried that she was offending her with such an ungainly climb onto her back. Once she was behind Rapskal, sitting spraddle-legged behind him on the dragon’s wide back, she asked, “What do I hold on to?”

  He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Me!” he replied, and then, leaning forward, he said quietly to his dragon, “We’re ready.”

  “No, I’m not!” Thymara protested, but it was too late. Too late to decide she didn’t want to risk her life riding a dragon across a river, too late even to find time to tuck her cloak more tightly around her or be sure of her seat. The dragon lurched into motion, running down the grassy hillside. Thymara was uncomfortably aware for a moment that the other keepers were watching them take flight together. But in the next instant, as Heeby made a wild leap, landed hard, and then leaped again, abruptly snapping her wings wide open, she could think only of holding tight to Rapskal’s tattered coat. She tried not to worry about what he was holding on to. She hugged herself to his back, turning her head sideways and closing her eyes as the flapping of the dragon’s wings drove the cold air against her face. She was too aware of the dragon’s muscles moving beneath her, straining mightily; and then suddenly the lurching stride was gone and they were rising, the rhythm of Heeby’s wings gone from the frantic fluttering of a sparrow to the steady strokes of a big bird of prey.

  Thymara risked a peek. At first all she saw was Rapskal’s neck. Then, as she dared to turn her head, she saw the panorama of the river spread out below her. She tipped her head slightly and tried to look down, but she was too cautious to lean out. All she could see was the side of her own body and then the side of the dragon’s wide chest.

  “Loosen your arms. I can barely breathe!” Rapskal complained, shouting the words at her through the flow of air.

  Thymara tried to obey him and found she couldn’t. She might will her grip to loosen, but her arms were reluctant to obey her. She compromised by shifting her grip slightly. Her hands still clutched his shirt tightly. Now she really regretted agreeing to this. What had she been thinking? One slip from Heeby’s back meant certain death in the swift cold water below. Why had it seemed like an invitation to an exciting and daring adventure rather than an irrational opportunity to risk her life? Surely they must nearly be to the other side by now! Then, as she realized that landing there meant that she would have to brave another flight back, her courage departed completely and she was gripped by sheer fear. This wasn’t fun, or adventure. It was a stupid jaunt into danger.

  She tried to get her panic under control. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t a person who got scared easily. She was competent and strong. She could take care of herself.

  But not in a situation like this, a situation in which her skills meant nothing and she had no control over the risks involved. That, she realized abruptly, was what she disliked. The risks were wildly out of her control. She was in a situation where she depended entirely on Rapskal’s good sense and Heeby’s flight skills to keep her safe. And she was not truly confident of either of those things. She leaned forward to speak right by his ear.

  “Rapskal! I want to go back. Right now!”

  “But we haven’t reached Kelsingra. I haven’t shown you the city.” He was clearly startled by the request.

  “I’ll wait. I’ll see it when the others do, when we get the docks repaired so that Tarman can tie up to them.”

  “No. There’s no reason to wait. This is too important! There’s something I have to show to you now, today. You’re the only one who will understand it right away. I know that Alise Finbok doesn’t. She thinks the city is some big dead thing that we have to keep just the way it is. But it’s not. And Kelsingra is not for her, anyway. It’s for us. It’s waiting for us.”

  Rapskal’s words distracted her from her terror. “The city isn’t for Alise? That’s crazy. She came so far just to help find it, and she already knows so much about it. She loves Kelsingra. And she wants to protect it. That’s why she was angry at you for breaking a window. She said that you must have more respect for the ruins, that we have to keep everything safe and exactly as it is until we’ve learned everything we can from them.”

  “The city isn’t meant to be kept safe. It’s meant to be used.”

  A new uneasiness stirred in Thymara. “Is that what this trip is about? Using the city?”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t hurt it. And I didn’t break any window! I told her that. Yes, I went up in that tower; I’ve been into just about all the big buildings. But I didn’t break anything. That panel was broken when I got there. If you want, I’ll take you there and show you what she was so upset about. It’s pretty amazing up there; you can see almost as much from that tower as you can see from Heeby’s back. And there’s this sort of map thing that shows what the city used to look like. But that’s not the most important thing. It isn’t what I want to show you first.”

  “I can see it all later. Please, Rapskal. I don’t like this.” She forced the words past her teeth. “Look. I’m scared. I want to
go back.”

  “We’re more than halfway. Look around, Thymara. You’re flying! When your own wings get big and strong enough, you’ll be able to do this on your own. You can’t be afraid of it now!”

  She had never, she suddenly knew, believed that she was going to be able to fly. She’d never truly realized what flying would be, how high above everything she would be. How swiftly the wind would pass her. Tears flowed from the corner of her slitted eyes as she tried to take his advice and look around. Open air around them and the mountains in the distance. She tipped her head slightly so she could look down. There was the city, spread wide before them. She had not realized it was so big! It sprawled on a flat stretch of land between the riverbank and the mountains. From here, the damage to Kelsingra was far more evident. Trees and brush cloaked an ancient landslide that had buried part of the city. And a great cleft reached into the city from the river, damaging the buildings there. She blinked, turned her head, and looked far upriver. Her breath caught as she glimpsed the beginning of a bridge’s arch. It ended abruptly, and the river rippled over the fallen remnants of stone at the water’s edge. It was hard for her to conceive that anyone had ever thought they could span such a river with a bridge, let alone that once the bridge had existed.

  “Hold tight to me. Sometimes she stumbles a bit when she lands, still.”

  He didn’t need to repeat the advice. Thymara clung to him like a limpet on a rock as the dragon dipped down toward the city. Lower and lower Heeby went, and the chill and deadly river grew larger and wider beneath them. She slowed the beat of her wings, and Thymara felt as if they were dropping far too fast. She clenched her teeth, willing herself not to scream. Then the wide streets of the city were right in front of them, rushing up at them as Heeby suddenly beat her wings frantically. The wind of that motion plucked at Thymara, trying to tear her free of her frantic grip on Rapskal. Then the dragon landed, feet braced and claws skittering on the pavement stones. Thymara slewed wildly on the creature’s back, gripping Rapskal’s shirt for dear life. Her head snapped forward, her forehead banging into his back, and then whipped back. It was too much. Before Rapskal could utter a syllable, she let go of his shirt, slid sideways off Heeby’s back, and landed sprawling on hard, solid stone. For a moment she didn’t move, only savored the sensation of stillness. Safe. Safe on the ground again.