Nightpool

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  He lay trying to understand where he was and why he hurt, and was not clear about anything. He was in some kind of a building made with logs set wide apart so sky and seashore shone between them. The logs were lashed together with chain. The thing was like a huge cage, and he was chained inside it.

  He was in the dragon trap.

  He pawed at the waterskin and turned to lift it, sending fire through his middle. He soon found he could lift no weight without pain. He managed to slide closer to it and drag it up on his chest, above the hurt, and sucked at it, spilling a good deal over himself, but satisfying his thirst at last.

  He lay there all day, asleep, awake, then late in the day burning one minute and shivering the next. Someone brought him food, fried rabbit and hard bread, but he was too sick to eat. He begged for a blanket and was ashamed of begging. He slept and woke, and was conscious of little, until he woke and saw it was dark. Or nearly so, for the moon was there overhead, thin and bright—and then gone. The moon suddenly gone.

  He thought it was his illness making him blind. But no, there was something—something there in the night, covering the moon. Something . . .

  Then he could see the moon again, but the something was still there hovering in the sky low over the cage, reflecting moonlight on its pale silvery body that stretched out long and curving, on its immense wings that shimmered across his vision far broader than the width of the cage. He stared up at her, trembling. Immense she was, and wondrous, and though he should have been terrified, should have cringed away, knowing she could kill him, he was not afraid. He was filled only with wonder, with awe and with a longing he had never known and could not challenge or question. There was no fear. Only a strange, throat-tightening love that left him confused and shaking. She lifted away higher and grew smaller, passed across the moon again, then disappeared.

  And still he trembled and stared at the night and could not sleep anymore. Long after the dragon departed, she still filled his mind, her gleaming wings and her huge, clear green eyes looking and looking at him.

  Chapter 7

  The dragon had awakened not many days before, in the mud of Tendreth Slew. She had been asleep for many years there, and she was the only singing dragon among the dozens of squat hydrus and common dragons that used the slew for concealment. When she woke and lifted her head from the muck to look around her, she saw no other like herself. She stretched her long neck up to look more carefully, and rivers of mud ran off her silvery scales. She blew from her nostrils in a shower of mud. Then she stood up with a sucking noise, and mud poured back into the hole she left. The other creatures stirred and moved away to give her room, so the whole slew writhed with their slithering.

  She stared up into the dawn sky and opened her great red maw, and roared at sky and mountains and at the world in total. The mountains thundered her call in receding echoes. She pulled one clawed foot from the mire to paw at the chill air; then she climbed out of the slew onto the stone ledge beside it with a sucking pull and made her way along the escarpment until she reached a clear, fast spring flowing down out of the mountain and into the rock-edged lake. She slid in and swam, washing herself, rolling and blowing in the deep icy water, twisting down into the depths, then up again to break surface with sprays of foam.

  She came out glistening, as pale and iridescent as a sea opal. She was no color and all colors, for her glinting sides reflected the colors around her: her belly coppery from the stone beneath her, her sides brown and green from the mountain, and her back mirroring the pale dawn sky just as her dragon’s mind mirrored the long, rich life of Tirror.

  She stretched to dry herself, streaming water. She spread her wings on the wind and shook them so they shattered the light. She was as long as twelve horses, and slender, with a fork at the end of her tail, and two gleaming horns on her forehead. Her sharp fangs marched in two rows beside a forked tongue red as blood. Her eyes were green, though they could look azure or indigo, depending on her temper. She stared into the clouds above her, her mind filled with a thousand pictures, and she wanted to sing. But she would not sing here, alone. And then slowly she realized why she had waked. She felt the changes in her body, subtle as song itself and as compelling.

  Her eggs were forming. Soon she must fertilize them. She felt the urgency to breed like a great tide, and she cried out a ringing call. Her eyes flashed, her body towered, rearing. Then suddenly she leaped skyward in an explosion of beating wings.

  And if before she had been beautiful as she reflected the lake’s waters, now in flight she was like jewels of ice. She lifted on the thermals and spiraled upward, bellowing her clear call, filled with the sky’s freedom and with the thrill of her own power, and she headed north toward the highest, wildest peaks of Tirror to begin her search for a mate.

  But was there any male left in Tirror? Had all the singing dragons but herself fled through the twisting ways into other worlds? Was she the last, all alone?

  Then as she headed north she spied the army camped on Baylentha’s shore, and she dropped to look. But the soldiers did not cheer her as men of old would have done, before she went to sleep. These men cowered from her and brandished weapons, and that angered her. She dove at them, bellowing, and they ducked away and cried out, and some shot arrows at her. She dove at them, spitting flame, and drove away their horses, and left them huddled together as she swept away to more urgent business.

  But something about the camp on Baylentha’s shore made her curious, and she returned several days later.

  Now the shore was bare, so she circled and left, but still she was drawn to it, and the next time she came the soldiers were back, and now they were cutting trees and constructing something huge on the shore. They stood watching her this time with some strange urgency until she swept up away into the clouds.

  Her curiosity drew her back again and again. She spent her days searching the mountains for a mate, then came to Baylentha late in the night, while the soldiers slept. Soon she knew what it was they built, and then one night there was bait in the trap, and she dropped low to see.

  A young boy was tied in there. She hovered over the cage, staring at him. He slept so deeply. She rose quickly against the moon, excited because he was there, and unsettled.

  The next day a male dragon began trailing her; she discovered his scent on the crosswinds, and her own inner pulses quickened; and they began the slow, elusive game of seeking that dragons desire. She should not have returned to the boy. But something insistent drew her back each nightfall.

  He was always asleep when she came, and she decided he was ill. One night she drew down very close to him and saw the mark on his arm, and then she knew. She knew why she had come.

  As swiftly as Ebis the Black’s troops moved northward, the two foxes who accompanied them moved faster, impatient at the slowness of horses. They left the riders behind a mile, two miles, three, as they fled for Baylentha’s shore in a frenzy to see the dragon. For already they had sighted her overhead in the moonlight, and if luck held, they might warn her of the trap.

  When they topped the last hill, they plunged to a halt and stared down directly below them at Sivich and his men, all asleep in the moonlight. The trap was huge, and they could see Tebriel curled up in a corner of it; and already the dragon was storming in over the sea.

  She dropped down out of the sky, directly over the trap.

  “The door is propped open with a stick,” said Luex. “Oh, she’ll be caught!” The two foxes knew quite well about traps; they had seen many of their small, mute brothers, the red foxes, caught in them.

  “She’s avoiding the door. She knows about traps,” said Faxel, and he watched the dragon’s descent with admiration.

  “She’s beautiful, like snow and sea foam,” breathed Luex.

  “She’s looking in at the prince. How can he sleep, when she is there beside him?”

  “Maybe he’s just lying still. Maybe he’s afraid,” Luex said sensibly. “He doesn’t know. No one has told him.”
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  *

  Teb lay half awake, feverish and chilled, his chest hurting so, it was agony to move. When the strong, sudden wind touched his face, he rolled over, gasping with the pain—and he was staring up between the log bars at the dragon.

  She blotted out the stars, hovering above him. She stared down, and her huge eyes held him. A mountain might have been swinging in the sky above him, except this mountain looked and looked, its eyes like two green pools, seeing deep inside him, seeing more than any creature should see, more than he himself knew.

  At last she tore her gaze away and circled the cage, and then, as Teb’s heart thudded, she dropped down to earth and stood with her shoulders pressing against the cage and her head thrusting in through the bars at him, her mouth inches from his face.

  *

  “What will she do?” whispered Luex.

  “What’s keeping Ebis?” Faxel grumbled. “Horses are so slow.”

  But though they couldn’t yet hear the pounding of approaching troops, the earth had begun to tremble under their paws, so Ebis wasn’t far behind.

  The dragon remained very still, poised over Tebriel.

  The soldiers began to wake, and the two foxes crouched lower. The camp had seemed as if dead, even the tethered horses nodding where they stood, their knees locked, quite gone in sleep standing up.

  “I think that’s Sivich there,” said Luex, gesturing with her nose.

  “How can you tell?”

  “That great dark leather cape thrown over him, and the way he has the best place by the fire. But what is the dragon doing?”

  “She still has her head in the trap,” he said impatiently.

  “I can see that. But why?”

  “It’s Sivich, all right. He sees her.” They both hugged the ground as Sivich leaped up shouting.

  “To arms—arm yourselves—the dragon . . . Chase it into the trap. . . . Use your spears, force it in!”

  Men leaped up half dressed, grabbing swords and spears, hastily fitting arrow to bow, and soon the dragon was surrounded from behind and forced against the cage. The foxes stared and shivered as she faced her attackers, then turned away from them again almost disdainfully, and gave her attention to the boy, forcing and worrying at the great logs of his prison.

  “Oh, fly away. . . .” whispered Luex. “Fly away. . . .”

  “She’s trying to free the boy,” breathed Faxel.

  Bellowing, and her breath flaming, the dragon tore at the log bars. Suddenly out of the sky burst a second dragon, black as caves. He descended straight down to the female. At the same moment the pounding of hooves grew to thunder, and Ebis’s troops roared into view around the hill, straight toward Sivich’s army.

  They rode into the midst of the soldiers, scattering horses, charging the men who thrust and slashed at the dragon. The black dragon was battling beside her now, bellowing and throwing men against the timbers.

  Then suddenly out of the maze a small figure darted, dodging beneath dragon wings and around galloping, rearing horses.

  “He’s free! Oh, she’s freed him!” Luex yipped.

  As Sivich’s troops were driven back, and the black dragon nudged the female skyward, the foxes lost sight of Teb. The two dragons rose against the sky, belching flame down on the warriors; they were above the battle, covering the sky, then lifting toward the moon.

  “Where is the prince?” The foxes sought that small running shape, but the battle was terrible now, as Ebis’s men pounded Sivich’s raiders. Had Tebriel escaped? Or had he fallen beneath pounding hooves?

  ‘There . . .” Luex cried. “There—the prince . . . Someone has taken him up. . . . “ They could see Teb then, limp and clinging in front of a rider who sped and dodged away from the battle, whipping his horse, holding the boy against him.

  “It’s Ebis’s sergeant,” said Faxel. “The white horse . . .” But six riders were converging on the fleeing soldier, their bows raised. They fired, the white horse stumbled, ran, stumbled again under a second volley, and fell, the rider spilling under its shoulder, trying to throw Teb free.

  Riders and horse lay in a heap. The battle raged around them, and a rider leaped down and nudged the bodies with his toe, stood watching a moment, then mounted again and was off. The three lay unmoving.

  “Are they dead?” Luex looked at Faxel, her eyes huge. They fled down the hill and onto the battlefield between rearing, plunging horses and swinging swords. They reached Teb and nuzzled his cheek with their noses.

  “He’s breathing,” Luex panted. “But the horse—it’s lying on his leg. Is it alive? Bite at it.”

  They bit and harried at the white gelding until, tossing in agony from its wounds and from this new torment, it heaved itself away from Teb, freeing him. But he did not move.

  It was then, as they stood nosing Teb and licking his face, that suddenly the jackal broke out of a clashing mêlée, bloody from the fighting, dripping blood from its jaws, and was on them; neither had seen the jackal or known one was near, and they both faced it now frozen with shock before Faxel let out a staccato yipping challenge and attacked it as it bore down on them; Luex close behind screamed her fury, their sharp teeth going for its throat.

  But it was a big jackal, twice their size, and maddened already from battle, and though they matched it they could not best it. When it grabbed Luex by the throat, Faxel tore at its eyes until it dropped her, then, “Run, Luex—find shelter,” he yipped, and they were both dodging among fallen bodies and writhing horses as the heavy jackal winged over them. “Keep low—under that horse. . . . It will tire before we do,” breathed Faxel as it dropped and doubled over them. “Keep it following, away from the boy.”

  *

  Teb woke squirming with pain. His ribs were on fire, and his leg hurt so much it sent pain all through his body, and his vision would not come clear. He reached out and felt a great hairy bulk. He pushed at it and felt the inert stillness of death. He rolled away from it, instinctively, into shelter and felt the marsh grass bend and snap up around him as he pulled himself through it, squirming, pulling himself in deeper across the mud, the pain in his leg hitting him in waves as he moved, but the sounds of battle behind him keeping him moving. He drew in where the grass was tall and thick, then fainted again from the pain.

  The marsh lay bright green all along the coast clear from the Bay of Fear, the eel grass and wild oats and cord grass heavy and tall and rich with the life of crabs and shrimps and water snails and small hatchling fishes in among its waters. Otters hunted there sometimes, as now did two young males out alone on a roving spree. They sat taking a meal of oysters from a muddy bed among the sprouting grasses when they heard the high yipping. They had been hearing the sounds of battle for some time, feeling the tremble of the earth in the marsh mud.

  “That’s a kit fox barking,” said Mikkian.

  “Are you sure? All I hear is horses thudding and humans shouting.” Charkky stared toward the barrier of tall sea grass, trying to imagine what was occurring beyond it. Then the yipping of kit foxes came again. “Oh, yes—I hear it, too.”

  “Why would kit foxes be mixed in a battle with the dark raiders?” said Mikkian.

  “I don’t know. But I know dragons were mixed in.”

  “You only think you saw dragons. Why would—”

  “I saw them, I tell you. If you hadn’t been stuffing your face with oysters, you’d have seen them, too. Two dragons, Mikk. I saw. . . .”

  “Hah,” Mikk huffed as if he didn’t believe a word.

  “Well, I did see them. And I heard the foxes cry just now, as well as you did, and I am going to find out what’s happening.” And off went Charkky, humping through the tall, waving grass.

  Mikkian sighed and slid up out of the mud, to follow. “We’ll make better time by water,” he said, nipping at Charkky’s fat tail.

  Charkky didn’t answer, but he swerved and doubled back and headed for the surf, so the grass thrashed above him.

  They dove into the breakers a
nd were quickly beyond them, to head west, following Baylentha’s shore, swimming mostly underwater, and so with no more arguing, for the moment. They reached the scene of battle and slid in under the waves, then stuck their noses out very close to shore, to hear the scream of a dying horse and smell the stench of blood. They didn’t see the foxes, only the teeming battle, and they heard a groan. Then Mikk caught the scent of the foxes, and they followed it into the marsh grass, near a dead white gelding.

  “The foxes were here,” said Mikk. “Two of them, and—”

  “I can smell them!” said Charkky. “There!” he cried, and leaped forward to part the thick grass.

  Before them lay a still, bloodied human form.

  “It’s no bigger than we are,” Mikk said, sniffing at Teb’s face. “It’s just a child—a boy child.”

  “Is it alive?”

  They put their noses to Teb’s nose and could feel his breath. Teb groaned again.

  It took the two otters some time to decide what to do. Because the boy was small, he appealed to them more than an adult; they would likely have left an adult human to die. This boy was no older than they, and he was in need.

  “They’ll trample him,” Mikk growled as a skirmish of fighting closed in on them. “Drag him farther into the marsh.”

  They did. “What now?” Charkky said. “We can’t leave him. We’ll have to take him home. But how? He’s too sick ever to swim.”

  “Human boys can’t swim much anyway. We—we’ll have to make a raft.”

  “Like a fish raft for the winter catch,” said Charkky.

  “Exactly.”

  Soon Charkky was chewing off great hanks of cord grass and braiding them into twine, while Mikk searched for driftwood logs along the shore, where they had dragged Tebriel. The battle moved off to the north, away from them, so the otters worked with less frenzy. They dragged three good logs together and laced them tight, then pulled the raft into the surf, dragging Teb on board before it was quite floating, then pulling the whole heavy mass out into the waves. The journey that followed nearly killed Teb, for he almost drowned in the cold seas that lapped over him, choking him again and again. The otters had to stop pulling and pushing the raft each time and hold his head up until he could breathe. The salt water started his wounds bleeding harder, and stung fiercely.