by E. E. Knight
They stayed low, just at the edge of the cloud cover, so the dragons could drop down and navigate with their eyes. Ileth wondered if even that would be possible for much longer. A veil of snow looked to be coming in from the north.
Ileth just made out Stavanzer off to the west, so her homeland, the Freesand, would be north of that, not that she had any great desire to see its hilly coastline and muddy, sandbank-choked estuaries.
For someone brought along for her expertise on the North Province, she had only a rough idea of what their destination might be, given their direction. East of the Freesand was a plateau that ended in cliffs overlooking Pine Bay. She didn’t know much about it, other than it was good country for sheep and shaggy goats and not much else, flanked by the waters of the Freesand on one side and the straits on the other. It was called the Headlands. North and east of that, across the bay and the straits, that was the Rari coast.
They were in the air just long enough to get cold when the snow closed in. The dragons flew lower and still lower, until they were just above the treetops.
As Serena predicted, Etiennersea called Telemiron to the front. He beat his wings hard and took the lead, and the other dragons formed up off his wings with Etiennersea just behind. Even Catherix clung tight at the rear, her nose in some danger of getting hit by Mnasmanus’s tailtip.
Ileth was grateful for Serena in front of her, even if she wasn’t bulky enough for a proper windbreak. She clung to Serena’s back like a mating toad. Telemiron might have adjusted their course, it was hard to say, and they broke out over grazing country. Ileth caught glimpses of barn rooftops and hay shelters as they fought the wind and snow. They came to sort of a low channel of a wide, shallow valley with a wandering stream that wasn’t quite a river, and Telemiron turned up it, following it roughly northeast. They passed over a town and the dragons circled it twice (“two bell towers,” Etiennersea called to Telemiron) to make sure of it, and then they turned north again, this time following some hedging that probably marked a road, currently hidden by the falling snow.
Telemiron made another turn at a shelter-shrine, and they flew until they saw flat rooftops of a long, rectangular wooden building whose uneven outline reminded Ileth of a big ship with a forecastle and high quarterdeck in back. It had a flat roof, unusual in the north. Serena made the landing chop with her arm and watched for acknowledgment waves.
The dragons circled the building. It was another great house, of a distinctive design, built of thick, horizontally laid timbers built up off a platform of stone very much like the big limestone blocks of the Serpentine’s walls. The windows were little wider than arrow slits. One could call it a fortification. She wondered if the Rari ever came up the cliffs and raided inland, that there would need to be a post like this. The roof was covered in what looked like smoothed river stones and gravel such as might be used in a decorative garden, with flower boxes arranged on it, with canvas covers to protect the soil inside from the winter winds.
Ileth heard a signal bell ringing below. She followed the sound to a watch platform on the roof, where a figure in a dress with a red-and-white scarf fluttering in the wind pulled at a bell rope that worked a bell in a sheltered enclosure like a birdhouse. After pulling, she waved at the dragons. They must have been expected.
As the line of dragons turned around the house, Ileth’s nose caught a hint of the sea on the hard north wind, but just a hint, if not welcome (because it reminded her of the Captain’s Lodge), at least familiar. The house must be near the shore. The ground was uneven, broken by cuts with exposed rock, with bare grassy hummocks interspersed with low runs full of small trees and bushes, now taking on snow. The dragons settled for landing in a line on the road. They alighted gently, aided by the brisk wind and uncertainty about the footing.
“There’s ice underfoot,” Telemiron said over his shoulder. “Be careful climbing down.”
The steaming dragons, each with a dragoneer walking next to its head, made for an impressive parade on the approaches to the house. Despite the weather, the dragons moved at a deliberate pace, giving the house plenty of time to arrange themselves for whatever this meeting was to be.
The house matched the weather—hard-edged and cold-looking, thanks to the accumulating snow. They were met out front by three or possibly four generations, it looked to Ileth. There was a very old man, held up by a cane on his left and a middle-aged woman on his right, both in heavy ship-coats. Two more women stood close together, thick shawls thrown over their shoulders, younger than the woman the elderly man relied on for support, with widow’s pleats in their well-made dresses. The latest generation was represented by a young man and a young woman, around her own age or a few years older. The young woman was the one who’d been ringing the bell; Ileth recognized her patriotic red-and-white scarf. Ileth guessed from her size and face that she was younger than her companion, a tallish young man trying to grow sideburns without much luck who’d put his boots on the wrong feet in his hurry to get out the door.
“Good to see dragoneers about again,” the old man said with a weak and trembling voice. He had difficulty keeping his chin steady.
Two more figures exited the great house, a man in the uniform of the Auxiliaries and a fleshy, hulky man in a bearskin coat who was perhaps the most sizable man Ileth had ever met, other than the dreaded Gorgantern of her novice year. They were content to wait behind the rest. Ileth recognized the bearskin man from the Freesand, as the Captain had called out to him on occasions when they met in the Freesand streets. He had something to do with shipping, or perhaps shipyards. Master Jut-something-or-other. Jutting? He hadn’t been a particularly close friend of the Captain as he’d never visited the Lodge, which was a good mark for him in Ileth’s personal blue book.
“Let me do the introductions, Grandfather,” the woman he leaned on said.
The old man patted his support’s hand. “I’ll leave everything else to you, Comity. Not this, dear. Not this.”
He took a step forward, shaking her off, and probed the ground with his cane before settling on it with both hands. His thin hair blew in his eyes but he ignored it.
“Welcome to Sag House, dragoneers, and double welcome to your dragons. It’s been too long since the Old Post held their kind. Indeed, too long.”
The house didn’t look like it was sagging. Ileth surveyed the surrounding landscape. The house was set in a bowl feature, mostly surrounded by rounded, grassy hills, sheltered from the cold winds blowing in off Pine Bay. From above, it had looked like a sag in the ground, come to think of it.
“Thank you, sir,” Dun Huss said, blinking at the snow flying into his eyes by the fluky wind, and commenced his introductions. He started with the dragons and the accompanying dragoneers, and finished with Ileth, who was introduced as “one of our young female apprentices who spent her childhood in the Freesand.”
The old man looked from Ileth to Serena and back again as if he’d already forgotten which young female he spoke of, but the others gave Ileth encouraging nods, one northerner to another.
In return, the old man introduced himself as the head of the Aftorn family. Ileth had heard that name; it was known in the Freesand in shipping, mines, and lumber. Gadikan Aftorn was the elder, supported by his granddaughter Comity. The two ladies in shawls Ileth always thought of as “the widows” afterward—they’d married into the Aftorn family and lost their husbands; one died fighting a fire on his ship and the other had been taken by the Rari. The bell-ringer was Gandy, daughter to one of the widows; the young man, her cousin Astler, was linked to the old man through his mother, Comity. Ileth thought she must have married young to have such a grown child.
“I’m sorry you had such bad weather for flying. Was it very difficult not to become lost?” Comity asked.
“The dragons have a good sense of direction,” Amrits said. “If we’d struck the shoreline we would have tossed a coin to try east or west. Would
have made it eventually.”
“That’s the Sag for you, the only thing consistent about the weather is that it’s bad,” Gandy said. She was a lanky young woman and gestured and twitched about as she talked like she was being worked by an inexperienced puppeteer who hadn’t quite gotten the hang of her strings yet. Perhaps the dragons made her nervous. “I should like to go up on a dragon and get above the clouds. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen the sun.”
“You’re exaggerating again,” her cousin said. “The sun was shining just yesterday.”
There was some talk about taking the dragons to the Old Post. Everyone involved in the conversation except Ileth seemed to take it for granted that there was plenty of shelter for the dragons nearby, but Ileth couldn’t see where. Amrits and the man in the Auxiliary uniform talked about fresh meat for the dragons. Ileth didn’t know uniforms well enough to guess his rank, but he had silver buttons, and gold gleamed as much as gold could gleam in the weather on the hilt of his short-bladed sword, so she guessed he was someone of importance. The Auxiliary officer offered to go with the dragons to their lodgings, under a mile away but by a treacherous path.
“I don’t mind the walk, Dath,” the Borderlander said.
“No, Etiennersea is my responsibility, and the other dragons are hers. I’ll go and no doubt return with an appetite. Try not to bore the ladies.”
“May I c-come?” Ileth asked. “I’d like to see the Old Post.” So much for her “experience” with the north; they kept taking her to places she’d never seen. If only they’d wanted to know who bought empty brandy bottles in the Freesand—she had plenty of expertise in that.
Amrits nodded and the Auxiliary officer stepped up.
“I’m not part of the family, but if you need a guide to the Old Post, I’ll take you. Taskmaster Henn,” the Auxiliary said. Amrits gave a bow and Ileth bobbed. “It’s not far to the entrance.”
They crunched through the snow among the dragons. The humans slipped and slid as they walked the path.
“I’m fearful one of you will fall and I’ll step on you. Why don’t you ride?” Mnasmanus said.
The Auxiliary hardly startled when the dragon spoke. Usually people new to dragons took some time getting used to the idea that it wasn’t some trick. “I’ve never ridden a dragon. We have a couple in the Auxiliaries, old and very touchy. They don’t let humans on their backs.”
“Easier than a horse,” Dath Amrits said. He hurried up to Etiennersea and climbed into his saddle.
Henn unlatched a leather strap on his sword sheath, and it dropped to an easier distance for riding. Ileth put Henn into Serena’s saddle—a little awkwardly; she took a bootheel to the eye as he swung up into it. He was concentrating on the dragon and didn’t notice he’d struck her, so she said nothing. He couldn’t use the stirrups, so his feet just dangled. Ileth climbed up and sat behind, careful not to touch his uniform lest she catch something on one of those expensive buttons.
The snow slackened; the wind ceased to blow it about quite so hard, and Ileth could look around with interest. She could see a sharp horizon around a lighthouse to the east; these must be the cliffs she’d been told that marked the northeast extremity of the Vales and the Republic.
They negotiated a steep slope where the path effectively disappeared among the rocks thanks to the snow, but the dragons simply climbed over the obstacles. Ileth, once up the slope, had a better view of the lighthouse. It was short and stumpy and let what was probably tall cliffs under it do much of the work. Ileth saw a gap in the ground ahead, some sort of notch, or perhaps a canyon.
“The top entrance is—oh, the dragon found it.”
The green dragon turned and used her tail to fling up some dead creeper. The dragon disappeared into a break in the ground. Mnasmanus reared up and looked about.
“We’re about four dragon-lengths above the sea,” Mnasmanus said.
Henn shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, unused to the dragon’s size. “It’s an old river, part underground. I worked here, years ago. There was talk of making it into a local headquarters and warehouse for the Auxiliaries, like your Serpentine, as the interior is easy to expand, can be reached by sea, and has plenty of fresh water, but they decided the location was impractical. The Rari coast is just across. On a clear day you can see it.”
Telemiron climbed down a broad path and into the shelter of a roofed area. It was easy enough to turn the river canyon into a cave tunnel; all you had to do was add a roof. In some ways it was better than a cave; there were glassed skylights to admit light, though they were cracked and dirty and in some cases missing entirely, but they still served to light the gorge.
“Best get off here,” Telemiron said. “The footing’s good, and I may have to crouch. Mashing you would be a poor start to this.”
It was fun to explore the shallow “caves.” There was a steep, wide slope down to the river. The sound of water filled the interior. Bats and barn owls and sea birds had taken up residence. At the bottom she saw that the path opened up into a sea cave where the river flowed out and joined the waters at the northeastern edge of the Vales. It smelled of salt water and droppings. The cave was larger than the flight cave mouth, but not as useful as it was mostly water. Ileth, from her study of maps and nautical charts, knew this as the Cope Channel, where the sea waters leading to Pine Bay were narrowest. Tricky waters; you had to negotiate a hairpin channel before reaching another bay that widened into the Inland Ocean, with unreliable winds making matters worse.
The sea cave had been improved. The river that formed the cut had a dam built into it with a channeled fall, and the dragons were drinking from it—she guessed below the fall the water was too tainted by salt, which dragons couldn’t consume in quantity without provoking diarrhea any more than humans could.
Mnasmanus probed at the dark corners and a family of raccoons fled.
“I thought so,” Mnasmanus grumbled.
“Used to be a jolly post,” Telemiron said. “I liked to swim out of this cave. Salt water and sunshine on the rocks, best scale cleanser there is. Too bad they didn’t keep it up.”
“Shame to leave it to the raccoons and birds,” Henn said.
Ileth felt rather than heard Etiennersea say something to the others.
Henn plucked at Amrits’s sleeve. “What was that?”
“Drakine. Sometimes they like to talk among themselves without us understanding.”
“She and Catherix are going to rest in one of the upper shelves, out of the wind,” Mnasmanus said. He was right; at the moment the wind blew out of the cave mouth, no doubt channeled by the river cut. A good dragon-smell coming out of the cave would keep the raccoons away.
Henn walked to the edge of the wharf and looked out the cave mouth. “We have some barrels of salted pork and mutton for the dragons. Sorry there’s nothing fresh, but for now this campaign’s marching on breeze and spit. We didn’t think it wise to try to run more than a single boat in. Didn’t want the Rari marking new traffic.”
“Less said about that the better,” Amrits said. “I’m surprised you know.”
“I’ve been tasked with the staff work, and figuring what it will take to put this place in order,” Henn said. “So far it’s just me and the people at Sag House; Comity was the one who I worked through. I don’t think anyone’s even told the old man anything, other than that some dragoneers were coming to inspect the Old Post. Same with the others.”
Amrits craned his neck about, staring into the water at the edge of the wharf.
“Ileth, you should come see this,” Amrits said.
She trotted over to the masonry forming a wharf. It was in superb shape for not having been used in years, through the freezes and thaws of the north. Of course the weather would be moderated in this cave, with the seawater cushioning the changes of temperature. Still, whoever had built it had done a good job.
“Look at that starfish,” Amrits said.
It would have been harder not to look at it. The creature was huge, clinging to the shallow bottom of the cave, easily the size of a wagon wheel. It was a bright red like hot coals with little white lines forming a tiled pattern all over the body. While the coloring was remarkable, its size was what shocked her.
“I’ve n-never seen one so big. I didn’t know they could get like this.”
Amrits smiled. “My guess is when he was a young starfish he sat there at the bottom eating dragon waste, just as his ancestors did. Maybe we had an unhealthy dragon here and there was blood in the stool, who knows. It’s the jars in practice out in the wild.”
“Jars?” Ileth asked.
“Oh, you haven’t had your physiker lectures yet, I suppose. You’ll see. I don’t want to spoil the fun.”
Henn joined them. “If I dared, I’d pull him out and toast him. A decoration like that would be worth some money in Stavanzer.”
“Oh, leave it be,” Amrits said. “They say seeing a bright star at the outset of a campaign is a good omen. Maybe that includes starfish.”
Amrits seemed to think so. He turned jaunty at the prospect of a campaign, and his eyes lit up like a dragon’s. Or maybe it was just the thought of the lonely widows back at Sag House. “Now I have an appetite. Let’s open up some of those brine barrels and get back to the house in time for a hot meal with the others.”
* * *
—
After a hearty, and salty, meal, the dragons were content to nap out of the weather, getting their first comfortable rest since the trip began, as dragons felt as tucked in and safe in a cave with walls all around as humans did in a familiar bed. Amrits, serious for once, explained to Ileth that dragons were only truly happy in an underground nook with plenty of echo so they could hear anything creeping up on them.
Back at the Sag—they clomped through the mud of the trail left by the dragons—there was the classic midday welcoming food spread out for them, still-warm bread and sausages swimming in a sea of brown-sauced beans, with plenty of strong tea. The wealthy didn’t eat that differently from the ordinary in the north, though the bread at Sag House was much better than it had been at the Lodge. Everyone else had already eaten and Ileth grazed on what was left after Amrits and Henn filled their plates.
