The Tropic of Serpents: A Memoir by Lady Trent (A Natural History of Dragons)

by Marie Brennan

  FIFTEEN

  Traversing the flood—Moulish engineering—Swamp-wyrms on the hunt—I miss my footing—My misfortunes—Witchcraft, again

  I have described to you how the inundation of the Green Hell made the place almost more lake than land. We had gained two newcomers to the camp since settling there, and lost five others; I had assumed they went by raft while I was otherwise occupied. But travel by raft is too dangerous during that season: apart from the usual predators, swamp-wyrms not excepted, the water swarms with small, eel-like creatures we had dubbed fangfish, which are rapacious carnivores. To avoid these hazards, the Moulish traveled by other, more exciting means.

  Three of us went out with Mekeesawa; Faj Rawango elected to stay in camp, I think to mitigate any sense that we were being antisocial by pursuing our own ends. Mekeesawa took us to the end of the long spit of land on which we had pitched our camp, and we waded across a shallow stretch to another spot that was not so much island as tree. It was one of the great forest giants, tangled about with smaller parasitic trees, and he indicated to us that we should climb.

  Tamshire’s rocky soil does not support much in the way of good climbing trees; nor do Tamshire’s gentry support much tree-climbing in girls. Mekeesawa clambered up with no trouble, and Natalie followed him with surprisingly little, but I required Mr. Wilker’s assistance. My face, I am sure, was flamingly red by the time we reached the others; in part because of the heat, but much more because of the indelicate physical contact his aid required. We had swept aside our conversation on the hunt—or rather, swept it under the rug—but it is difficult to ignore questions of propriety when a man places his hand on your posterior to help you up a tree.

  He, at least, could blame the redness of his skin on his Niddey ancestry. (I am not sure Mr. Wilker had stopped being red since we arrived in Nsebu.) And we were both soon distracted by what Mekeesawa had brought us up there to see.

  The giant tree soared higher still, but here the parasites that clung to its trunk branched outward. In front of us those branches tangled with others from another tree; then I looked more closely, and saw the tangle was no accident at all.

  It may have begun that way. But just as the island on which we camped had been built up by human action, so too had this tangle been fostered, with creeping vines binding the branches together and shaping them into—

  “A bridge!” Natalie said, grinning from ear to ear.

  In Scirling, I said to her, “You truly have the soul of an engineer.” I did not mean it as a slight, though. Nor did I mean to denigrate the bridge, especially once I discovered it was part of a semiformal network extending across various parts of the swamp. During most times of the year this elevated system is more trouble than it’s worth to use, but when the waters rise high, it allows the Moulish to traverse the places where dragons and other predators are likely to lurk.

  As works of building go, it may not be as obviously impressive as a Nichaean aqueduct or a Yelangese highway. But I defy anyone to stand at the end of a Moulish tree-bridge and not be impressed.

  I also defy them not to be the slightest bit nervous about committing their weight to such a structure. Mekeesawa went first, examining the bridge and pausing occasionally to weave a branch in where it would grow to reinforce the whole. While the process was fascinating to observe, it did not exactly foster confidence.

  We three Scirlings exchanged dubious looks. “There are two ways to approach this,” Natalie said. “Mr. Wilker, you are the heaviest of us. If you go first, the bridge will be the least damaged and most able to support your weight; however, that may increase the risk for Isabella and myself. If we go first, you will have some warning as to its structural integrity … but it may also be damaged, and therefore unsafe, by the time you cross.”

  Mekeesawa was by then on the other side, and waving impatiently for us to come. “It must be quite safe,” I said, and made myself approach the end of the bridge. “The Moulish cross these things all the time.”

  “The Moulish,” Mr. Wilker muttered, “weigh half what I do”—which was only a minor exaggeration.

  I drew in a deep breath and set my foot on the branch, gripping a nearby vine as if my life depended upon it (which I hoped it would not shortly do). The structure I faced was to what I would call a “bridge” what a rope ladder is to a staircase: it might support my weight, but that did not make it reassuring. Sparing a moment to bless once more the decision to dress in trousers, I slid my other foot past my ankle, settling it just beyond the point where another branch crossed my main support. Bare feet, I realized, would be much better for this task, being able to bend and grip the surface—but only if those feet belonged to a Moulish woman, mine being far too tender for the task. The branches and vines I gripped were, at least, blessedly thorn-free; at this height, they had much less to fear from passing herbivores. Step by step, I proceeded.

  It is inevitable, I suppose, that halfway through such an undertaking, one will commit the error of looking down.

  Beneath me lay a lacework of branches and vines too thin to support my weight if I fell; beneath that—vertiginously far below—the water was a murky, green-brown plate, broken only by the wake of something swimming just beneath the surface.

  I forced myself to look away and breathe through my nose, preventing the hyperventilation that would have made me dizzy. When I finally forced myself to take the next step, my shoe slipped a few centimeters: not enough to imperil me, but more than enough to set my heart racing. The half-dozen steps it took to reach Mekeesawa seemed to take forever—but then, at last, I was safe.

  Whether Natalie and Mr. Wilker had similar difficulties, I cannot tell you, for I was busy restoring strength to my now jellylike limbs. Once we had recovered, Mekeesawa led us onward to a place where he said we could likely observe the dragons—including some of their young.

  This was an area low-lying enough that it had been thoroughly drowned by the flood, with only the tips of underbrush poking up here and there in the water to show there was anything between the trees. Swamp-wyrms love such territory; it is full of fish, frogs, and other bite-size snacks. Much of their diet comes from these sources, but they do also pursue more substantial targets; and here, as in the savannah, we did not have to wait long before we saw this demonstrated before our eyes.

  The manner of it was quite similar; only the environment differed. In the trees across the way from where we sat, a troupe of colobus monkeys had begun a chattering argument amongst themselves. One of them so offended another that the second took to flight, branch to branch across an overhanging tree; and so it met its end.

  A ripple of disturbance made a traveling V along the water’s surface, our only warning of the dragon. And scant warning at that; an instant later, the swamp-wyrm burst above the surface, lunging into the air with jaws extended—snap! And the monkey was gone. A great wave spread as the wyrm splashed down. The colobus troupe fled in a panic, but one of them missed his grip upon the next branch and fell. He floundered only briefly in the water before the lithe, mud-green body eeled over to him and sent him to join his brother.

  This is not the only way swamp-wyrms hunt, of course. They will, like crocodiles, snap up creatures that wander too close to the water’s edge, as well as those in the water with them. In the drier reaches of the forest, they will behave more like arboreal snakes, concealing themselves beneath brush or twining around a tree. This semi-aerial hunting, however, is their most striking characteristic. When they swim, they fold their wings up into something like a fin that helps them steer at speed; then, when they are ready to strike, they extend their wings and use them rather like the arms of a ballista to propel themselves into the air. Sometimes one will lurk beneath his prey and bring his mouth just to the surface of the water; then he will patiently expel his extraordinary breath (which readers of the first volume may recall is a noxious fume) until the creatures above are so overcome that they drop. The result is rather like manna from heaven—at least if you a
re a swamp-wyrm.

  “It’s very like a savannah snake,” Mr. Wilker said when the dragon had subsided once more. “They may be more closely related than we thought.”

  Natalie’s mind was on more immediately physical matters. “I’ve never seen a wing fold like that. How on earth are those joints structured?”

  Without killing and dissecting one, answering that question would be difficult. But we had more than enough to occupy us, trying to estimate the size of the beast (from our brief glimpse of it), querying Mekeesawa about how that compared to the usual run of swamp-wyrms, and guessing at the number of colobus monkeys a dragon would have to eat each day in order to keep itself in good health.

  Mr. Wilker climbed a tree to study the water, calling down observations regarding the movement patterns of the creature, while Natalie exhorted him to be careful he was not eaten himself. I took my sketchbook from the small bundle I had lashed to my back and put down a loose collection of lines, but what I had observed thus far was grossly insufficient to let me make a good drawing. I had seen the one Velloin captured, but it was a malformed runt, and much inclined to curl into a sullen ball. I remembered well enough that the legs were set more like a crocodile’s than those of a terrestrial dragon, but not their exact disposition, and of the jointing of the wings I had little idea, on account of the runt’s deformities.

  Indeed, it took many observational trips before we had good data on such matters. But those trips took longer than they should have, because of the difficulties we—or more precisely, I—encountered.

  It began on the journey back to camp, when I fell into the swamp.

  We had crossed two tree bridges on the way to that spot; those traverses had been enough to reassure me that the structures would bear our weight. Perhaps that reassurance made me careless; I cannot say. I believe I was still as cautious as any woman might be who is trusting her life to a few branches woven together with vines. But on the second bridge, not far at all from camp, I misstepped, and found myself off balance. I reached for a vine—it tore—I windmilled my arms, trying to recover—I struck a nearby branch—and then I was falling.

  The instinct to flail for support was still active, and it saved my life. My right hand caught a lower branch, and if its bark tore half the skin from my fingers and palm, it slowed my descent. Slowed, not stopped: when the limb finished bowing beneath my weight, my arm was nearly yanked from its socket, and I lost what grip I had. Like that second monkey, I fell into the water, and you may recall that the purpose of these bridges is to lead the Moulish safely past the areas where dragons and other perils may lurk.

  I hit the water with a slap, driving down hard enough that I sank almost to my knees in the soft mud below. That came as near to killing me as the fall or any predator did; had I not managed to pull myself free, I might have drowned in short order. But pull I did, with all the strength that a good dose of panic can bestow. Then I kicked to the surface and sucked in a great gulp of air, and at that point I was home and dry, apart from being in the middle of some dragon’s possible hunting pool.

  A commotion off to one side was the two men hurling themselves down the tree as fast as they could go. I struck out toward that sound, trying not to splash too much. My thoughts kept returning to that smooth ripple across the water, and the swift death that had followed. Would a swamp-wyrm attack something as large as a human woman?

  The general answer to my question is yes. But as it turned out, that was the least of my worries.

  My fall had sent everything in the water darting away, but now they were returning. I felt movement past my limbs, and then a sharp pain on my left arm: one of the eel-like fangfish had found me, and buried its sharp teeth in my flesh.

  It had already been imperative that I get out of the water, but with this, my situation became dire. Fangfish will come to the scent of blood, and a school of them could tear me to pieces, leaving nothing but a skeleton behind.

  As with the leech, I reacted on terrified instinct, seizing the fangfish and ripping it free. My blood made a dark ribbon in the muddy water. I retained sufficient presence of mind to shout for Mr. Wilker to stay out; he had reached the shore, and was plainly about to throw himself in, but it would help not at all for both of us to be chewed on. Heedless now of splashing, I redoubled my efforts, and soon came within reach of his arm; he gripped my wrist and hauled me from the water.

  My breath sobbed in my chest, from exertion and fear alike. But I was safe now—or so I thought, until I heard Mekeesawa shouting in alarm. Heart pounding, I turned to look over my shoulder, expecting that narrow and graceful V.

  What I saw instead was the charging thunder of a pygmy hippopotamus.

  You may laugh; hippos are absurd-looking creatures, and the term “pygmy” suggests a pocket-size version. But your average pygmy hippo weighs more than two hundred kilograms and will beat the living daylight out of anything that trespasses in its waters. It is smaller and less vicious than its savannah-dwelling cousin, but this is like saying that a tornado is smaller and less destructive than a hurricane. While true, that does not mean it cannot wreak havoc.

  Mr. Wilker and I prepared to run. But Mekeesawa, knowing what we did not, urged us back up into the branches instead.

  Which is how I came to be treed by a furious, porky creature that would have cheerfully employed its silly little legs to stomp me into the mud. Once roused, hippos cannot be trusted to stop at defending their waters; they will chase the intruder, and can often outrun him. The one benefit of the entire debacle was that the creature’s bellows of rage drew the attention of the nearby camp, and some of the hunters came and killed it; we dined upon hippo meat that night.

  * * *

  (This, you may be interested to know, is the incident which persuaded me to wear trousers at all times while in the field. I no longer cared what others thought proper; I was all too aware that I never knew when I might have to swim, run, or climb a tree to escape an angry beast. I may risk my life on a regular basis—or I did in my youth—but I will not do so in the name of mere propriety.)

  * * *

  I had torn a great deal of skin from my hand, wrenched my shoulder, and thoroughly jammed my legs with my landing in the mud. This slowed our progress, and as I indicated above, it was only the first of many setbacks.

  To this day, I maintain that the difficulties we suffered were only the natural consequence of doing strenuous work in a hazardous environment. I have been in other hazardous places before and since—Vystrana; the Akhian desert; anywhere politicians may be found—but I think only the Mrtyahaima peaks equal the Green Hell for sheer lethality. Even the Moulish, who know the region better than any, suffer a great deal of hardship as a result of living there. Had we not encountered difficulties, it would have been a clear sign of supernatural blessing.

  But I cannot deny that the dragon’s share of those problems fell upon my head. It was I, not Mr. Wilker or Natalie, who fell from that bridge. I am the one who, on a subsequent day, was bitten by a venemous snake; I am the one who fell inglorious victim to an intestinal parasite, which had to be purged with a careful dose of strychnine. I broke two fingers on two separate occasions, attracted leeches like iron filings to a magnet, and knocked one of my sketchbooks into the campfire one night. I was, in short, a recurrent disaster.

  The effect of this upon my mood was if anything worse than the incidents themselves. In Vystrana I had ostensibly been my husband’s companion and secretary to the expedition; here I was supposed to be an equal partner with Mr. Wilker, yet I felt incompetent in comparison. It raised the spectre of our old strife—less, I should say, through any fault of his, and more through my own self-doubt. I tried harder to prove my worth (which led to things like the broken fingers), bore an unjustified grudge against Mr. Wilker for seeming proof against all perils, and generally made an utter shrew of myself. (How the two of them never gave in to the urge to chuck me into the swamp, I will never know.)

  The most detrimental effect, howe
ver, was upon our pursuit of a certain goal.

  I had not forgotten the matter of dragon eggs. Remembering Mekeesawa’s reticence on the subject, I tried asking Akinimanbi; Natalie’s theory was that the Moulish had a gender taboo, and such things were considered the proper province of women.

  As theories go, it was not a bad one, but in this case it was incorrect. It might have been a seasonal taboo—eggs not to be spoken of in the season of their hatching—but I did not know enough to suspect such a thing, and in any event that was not it either. This frustrated me enough that I began to press more sharply than was polite.

  Which did not earn me an answer, but did give me something else. Akinimanbi rounded on me at the edge of camp and said, “Why should I tell you? You’re cursed!”

  By then the “camp” had dwindled to Akinimanbi, her husband, her grandparents, and our crew of four. This was usual for the season; later they would come back together in larger groups. I had cause to be grateful for the smallness of the camp, as it meant the embarrassment of our argument was seen only by a few. “What do you mean, I am cursed?”

  “All these accidents,” Akinimanbi said, gesturing at my splinted finger. “A witch has put an evil spell on you, Reguamin. Everyone knows it. No one will tell you anything until you deal with it.”

  Before the last division of the camp, some of the youths had been telling stories in my presence—quite loudly—about people under the influence of witches. I had not realized their stories were meant as a coded message to me. It was the same notion I had gotten from the grandmother in that village, when Natalie became ill with malaria; and I had as little patience for it now as I did then.

  “No one has put a spell on me,” I said, “evil or otherwise. It’s simply bad luck. Or who are you saying has done this? Your husband? Your mother? One of the people who has been with us in camp?”

  “The witch doesn’t have to be here,” she countered. “It could be a villager. Or someone in the land you come from.”