Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  She didn’t know what to say to that. “I’ve been lucky.” Which was true enough.

  “I was born lucky. You made your luck.”

  She was silent for a moment, trying out different replies. “They say no dragoneer survives all his chances. The man who oversaw us our first year there, the Master of Novices. He dragged a leg and had burns all over his face. It could happen to me.”

  Astler looked at her sidelong, head tilted, giving her a good view of the thatch of cowlicks. “Did he say he wished he’d never been a dragoneer?”

  “No. I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t s-say he was proud of his injuries, but he thought it important that we all knew about them. Accept such possibilities.”

  He thought for a moment. “You think it’s more courageous if you accept risks like that without thinking of those injuries, or is the truly courageous one the man who imagines all those horrors happening to him, but he carries on despite them?”

  “You want my opinion?” She’d never had a boy ask her such a philosophical question.

  “It’s why I asked. I’d like to know which one you are.”

  “I haven’t thought about it. I’d say there’s really no difference. Do you get the job done? That’s the test.”

  “Still, it’s so desperate to have to make your women fight. I mean, how did they ever allow it at the Assembly?”

  “No one made me do anything. What seems desperate to you was a chance to live a dream.”

  “I wish I had more possibilities to my future. Astler Aftorn is expected to be the patriarch of a new blossoming of the family tree. Most families are shaped like a pyramid, you know, that last surviving elder at the peak and a heap of great-great-grandbabies at the bottom. Ours is more shaped like a diamond, with a bunch of childless widows and cousins in the middle and me and Gandy at the bottom. I’m to find some girl with roomy hips and get to work.”

  Ileth blushed. “You make it sound like cattle or something.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean the amorous arts themselves, I—it’s just I have this one role I absolutely must fill. Everyone gets a worried look whenever I climb on a horse, like I’m going to break my neck or fall onto a fence and tear off something that won’t grow back.”

  “There’s Gandy.”

  “Oh, she’s silly. She’ll marry whoever calls her beautiful and sends her flowers after a dance. Some fortune-hunter will get her, and then I’ll be headbutting with him for the rest of my life over inheritances.”

  “Run away and join the dragoneers.”

  “I couldn’t do that. A lot of people in the Headlands depend on our family. I’d be letting them down too. Gods and Fates, it’s like some wretched drama. The one girl—”

  “Excuse me,” a deep draconic voice said as a dragon approached, like a ship clearing a fog bank.

  They made room as Mnasmanus trundled down to drink after his breakfast. Ileth should have offered to clean his teeth, but she wanted to keep talking to Astler. Maybe he was right about having the other sex around breaking your concentration.

  “The one girl what?” she asked.

  He put on that shy smile again, the shy smile that was occupying an increasing amount of her thoughts when she wasn’t busy. “Oh, you know those sorts of stories. He falls recklessly and irrevocably for the one girl who it’s impossible to be with, but it all works out all right in the end. My aunt reads them, and I think Gandy skims them looking for the shocking bits about pregnancies.”

  “We didn’t have those sorts of books at the Lodge either,” Ileth said.

  “Just as well. Life isn’t like that.”

  “It’s routine, yes, but I bet a week ago you weren’t . . . you weren’t thinking you’d be in a cave full of dragons talking to a girl about pregnancies. You’ll have to excuse me now. I need to see if Mnasmanus there needs me to clean his teeth.”

  * * *

  —

  They spent one more day at the Sag, living quietly, keeping the dragons as much out of sight as possible. She grew to know Gandy better, as the girl suddenly took an immense interest in her and practically moved in with her in Astler’s room. She was tiresome company at first, but once Ileth learned to filter the chatter, it was more like having a songbird as a companion. Ileth had to say yes or no or thank you a few times an hour, but other than that Gandy’s discourse unspooled like thread fed into a loom.

  Thoughts of Astler disturbed her and she felt in danger of becoming one of those characters he mentioned who set her heart on an impossibility. Equally disturbing were the looks of Dun Huss, or rather the lack of them. While no charmer or conversationalist, he was affable and she’d always found that just standing near him offered a sense of safety and order that had been lacking from Ileth’s life since—well, since ever, so she enjoyed his presence. But every time she came near him in the Sag, he suddenly found he had another duty to attend to and excused himself. She grew increasingly certain he was keeping something from her. Something important.

  With another man, she would wait until he’d had his dinner and wine, refill his glass, and as he drank judge his mood and see if she could draw him out. Even the Captain had a free, kindly tongue with a good dinner in him and just enough brandy to make him easy, before he grew mean again at the fourth pour. But Dun Huss would drain half his glass at dinner and then refuse more while he still had that much to finish, then scuttle off with the Taskmaster or Serena, Amrits and the Borderlander to the study. Then she and Astler would start to chatting and her concerns would fade away in the glow of his conversation.

  On their final night, they reopened a wood-floored storeroom at the Old Post, set a fire under an ancient cauldron that had been too large to relocate, and made both humans and dragons a meaty stew. Winter peas and potatoes, dried herbs and some stewed-and-jarred tomatoes, plus the local beer, made a decent enough braise fit for the palates and digestive systems of humans and dragons. The group’s mood struck Ileth as content, as though matters were now in motion to the satisfaction of the dragoneers and the Taskmaster from the Auxiliaries and the shipping gentleman. They all walked about the Old Post like the new owners of a house who had great plans for its expansion.

  Something was in the offing, and Ileth resisted the impulse to let the dragoneers know just how many details she knew. After all, she’d consulted Annis Heem Strath’s plan often enough to recognize its outlines being roughed in.

  * * *

  —

  The morning of their departure, Ileth noticed that Astler seemed to be smelling rather strongly of his father’s shaving soap. He’d washed his hair with it and not all of the flakes had come out. She wondered if it was because she’d mentioned she liked it.

  Dun Huss broke the news that their flying party had to separate.

  “Three are going on to Stavanzer. Ileth, we’re commissioning you to fly to the Serpentine bearing messages and get back to your apprenticeship.”

  Ileth startled, awkwardly thrilled that they’d used the word commission in the presence of the family, as she was now beginning to think of them. She’d almost called Gandy cousin while pouring tea last night. “By myself?”

  “Yes. My advice is a good running start and a headwind,” Dath Amrits said. “All it takes is belief in oneself and arm strength.”

  Both the widows laughed politely and murmured compliments.

  The Borderlander clapped her on the shoulder. “Catherix is taking you. She’s tired of meetings. She knows the way home, and you should start learning how to return to the Serpentine from any point on the compass. Just keep going south. Once you’re over the Blues you can practically see the lighthouse. When she’s back on her shelf, you’ll attend her until I return.” The Borderlander was famous for not wanting wingmen, to the dismay of all the wingmen-at-large hoping for a position.

  That was news. Being charged with a dragon’s care in the place of her dragoneer!
Better than the word commission, though perhaps to the Sag House family the significance wasn’t so obvious.

  “Don’t sign for anything extravagant,” Serena advised. “Catherix may try to take advantage of your inexperience.”

  Ileth would have liked to go to Stavanzer. She’d never even been in the north’s largest city. But whining about orders wouldn’t impress any of the dragoneers or Serena. Ileth suspected Serena’s opinion might count for more with Charge Deklamp than that of the dragoneers.

  The Borderlander shuffled nervously. “If the dancers have need of you, you can leave it to the grooms and feeders, but check on her dawn and dusk. She’ll run you ragged. Don’t always let her have her way.”

  “As a good wingman should,” Dun Huss said.

  Ileth quietly choked on her food. Wingman! She reached for water, washed it down.

  “Don’t measure yourself for a sword-belt yet,” the Borderlander said, frowning at Dun Huss. “I don’t take wingmen.”

  “I was merely repeating the old axiom that if you wish for a position, show that you can perform as the position demands.”

  “Now, about my crossbow,” the Borderlander said.

  “Why are you bothering her with the crossbow?” Amrits said.

  The Borderlander shrugged. “Heard something big in the air about the lighthouse before dawn. Could have been gargoyles.”

  “Gargoyles! You should have told us.” Comity and one of the widows squeaked.

  “I think I know what that was,” Astler said. “It’s the canvas over the garden boxes. Sometimes the wind works one loose and it flaps.”

  “We haven’t had gargoyles overhead in my lifetime,” Comity said. “Didn’t they die out?”

  “You’re making everyone nervous,” Dun Huss said. “Ileth, test his crossbow and make sure you understand how to safely use it. Not because I believe there are gargoyles about, but because as a dragoneer flying on her own you should be confident with one.”

  After breakfast the Borderlander took her outside and showed her his crossbow. There was nothing distinctive about it; it looked to her exactly like the ones she’d seen hung up on the walls inside the Serpentine, a standard model built for the Guards. There were no frills or flourishes, badges, special sights, or notches in the stock.

  But it turned out to be modified after all. The Borderlander turned it over and Ileth marked a larger-than-usual plate for the trigger and some small screws. “Don’t let it fool you, it’s not an ordinary crossbow. I like a light trigger. The tinkers rigged it up for me. You see this slide? It’s easy, you can work it with your thumb. That’s the trigger lock. Cocking it makes a racket, so I cock it somewhere close to the ground and quiet, then keep the safety on and no bolt in it. I only put the bolt in when I have a target. Then trigger lock off once I’m sighted and only once I’m sighted. I don’t even touch the trigger until I’m a breath away from shooting. Then press the trigger, barely takes a twitch.”

  Ileth gulped, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She’d had exactly one morning of weapons training when she was first a novice, when they’d paraded the girls out into a field and let them examine a collection of weaponry, both from the Vales and captured in other lands, and learned the names of the various swords and pikes and clubs and bows and crossbows. They’d been allowed to pick them up but hadn’t otherwise been trained. She’d used a sling as a child and been fair at it, good enough to kill rabbits for sheepdogs, anyway.

  “Now I’ll watch you,” the Borderlander said.

  “I really don’t see her needing it,” Amrits said. “Catherix is twice as fast as a gargoyle, unless she’s taken unaware. As if. You’re wasting your bolts, and I know how much you spend for them.”

  “Practice ain’t waste.”

  He cast about outside the kitchens and found a partially rotted squash in the pig trough about the size of a squirrel. While the others checked over their saddles, he set the squash on a fence post for the Sag’s empty horse paddock (the horses had been removed to somewhere closer to the village with the dragons visiting).

  She was able to handle its weight without trembling. For as long as she needed to aim and shoot, she thought. He showed her how to open the handles to cock it, slipping your foot into a fitting in the front and then pulling with your back muscles. “It’s not powerful as some, but I like something I can load quick and easy. I have a hook built into the saddle rig on her neck there so you don’t need to use your foot, just lay the bow in the groove there and pull.”

  He had her try it, and with the crossbow cocked (the trigger lock engaged automatically when the string clicked across its little point). The bolts weren’t like any she’d seen on the table that day; they were little three-bladed points that matched the three arrow feathers at the other end.

  “The way the grooves on the quarrel heads are set, they spin a bit, goes into the flesh like a carpenter’s drill,” the Borderlander said. “You hit a gargoyle or a deer center-body, it’ll do enough damage that it’ll be down fast.”

  “Why do you keep bringing up gargoyles? You’re scaring the girl,” Amrits said. Maybe the Borderlander was doing it to get at him. Amrits kept glancing up into the sky every time they were mentioned.

  “Just be careful and don’t hit your dragon. They’ll go for the wings anyway, slash at them. If you miss a gargoyle and hit wing you’ll just punch a hole.”

  “This is too much. Ileth, don’t let him worry you. You’re not flying into battle.”

  “What are we training her for, then?” the Borderlander asked.

  “You’re not flying into battle today.”

  He showed her how to sight through the little metal V near the trigger mechanism, putting the top of the quarrel’s tri-blade on the target and getting everything lined up.

  “It’s not true archery, since you’re not playing around with distance and figuring how the arrow’s gonna fall off. This kind of crossbow’s not much good outside about the length of a big dragon, nose tip to tail, unless you got fifty of them lined up in a battle array, that is.”

  For her first shot, he had her stand only ten paces away.

  She followed instructions, cocking the bow, double-checking that the safety locked all the way down (that was the one quirk in the weapon, it seemed, the trigger lock was not as reliable as the rest of the mechanism). She thumbed the point of the quarrel, noting the subtle, drill-like channels in the point. They must have been made by a superior craftsman. Maybe that was what the Borderlander spent his pay on, since it certainly wasn’t clothes or personal comforts.

  “Aim for the smallest thing you can see. Let’s say a gargoyle is chewing on your dragon’s wing. Aim for its armpit, or its ear, not the whole chest or head. On that gourd, pick out a wart or that bit of black rot.”

  She aimed.

  “Now slide off the lock.”

  She pushed it with her thumb and she felt rather than heard a click.

  “Breathe out and as you breathe out, touch the trigger.”

  The trigger didn’t let go as soon as she pressed it, as she had feared it would. She re-aligned her sighting at the slight surprise and pressed. With about the effort it would take to press her finger into soft dough, the crossbow released with a TWONK!

  She was concentrating so hard on the little flange of the arrowhead in the notch of the back sight, she didn’t even see the gourd fly into pieces.

  He sent her to retrieve the bolt. It was easy enough to find. The head and the feathers were notched and damaged, but the shaft seemed untroubled by the gourd’s destruction.

  “Try again with this chunk,” the Borderlander said, setting a big piece on the post.

  “Oh, now you’re really wasting your bolts,” Amrits said.

  “I just want her confident with it if it’s going to be in reach,” the Borderlander said.

  Ileth shot again, hit again. That trick
about aiming at something small worked.

  “You could have feasted all of us for a whole evening on what you’re spending on those damned special bolts,” Amrits said.

  “Gargoyles,” the Borderlander said, as a child might say boo! to scare a younger sibling. Amrits jumped a little and the Borderlander turned away from him to hang the crossbow on Catherix’s saddle, chuckling softly to himself. Ileth decided there must be some history between them she didn’t know.

  The Borderlander inspected the string on the crossbow and secured it on its saddle, then latched a thong closed so it couldn’t fall off or flop around even if the dragon turned upside down. “If you forget everything else, just get a good grip with the stock hard into your shoulder and put that top arrow blade on target.”

  Dun Huss was suddenly hovering, checking the saddle girth and securing straps and the safety tether. He triple-checked the dispatch case, lock, and fitting to the saddle. “I think you’re worrying her needlessly. It won’t come up.”

  “If it does, I want her to be able to take care of Catherix and herself.” He patted the pale dragon, not quite white but not close enough to any other color for her to be called anything else. The dragon turned her back to him and licked him up the back of his head, like a mother dog licking a pup. Ileth had never seen a dragon do that to a human.

  “Awww, get off,” the Borderlander said.

  “You’ve been to the smokehouse,” Catherix said in her thick Montangyan. “A ham hangs. Tasty.”

  “Ileth, this is an important commission,” Dun Huss said, so quietly even Catherix would have difficulty hearing his words in the wind. “The Republic’s in more trouble than most know since the defeat in the Galantine War. Money’s dried up. The Assembly is talking about fewer dragons in the Serpentine, and I don’t dare tell you by how many apprentices and specialists let go. This has to go soon, and it has to go right. Go straight back to the Serpentine.”

  Was he worried she’d find an excuse to return to Stesside and speak to Ignata? The thought had crossed her mind, but she’d discarded it. They’d commissioned her to return to the Serpentine. She nodded.