She remembered how, when she had taken care to feed them at Yanil’s cottage, they had not wanted her to leave. They had trusted her.
Perhaps they are there beneath the others, Lyf told herself. Or hiding somewhere in the marsh. But a heaviness hung about her heart.
She stroked Kindle’s head, and the tattered skin came sloughing off—-almost transparent, like a snake’s skin when it sheds. She combed Kindle all over with her fingers, collected stray shreds of skin and tucked them into her sash. The knobs on Kindle’s shoulders were . . . blooming. Their hard, outer husks sloughed off in Lyf’s hands, revealing shimmery wing-stuff, curled tight but unfurling at the edges like petals bursting from the bud. Lyf hoped the little dracling had not left a trail of shedding skin all throughout the marsh. And the others . . .
Her heart constricted.
My fault
Owyn stirred and moaned. The draclings made little snoring sounds; thin wisps of smoke twined up from their snouts and blended with the fog. But Lyf could not think of sleep. She was drawn tauter than a warp thread on a new-strung loom. She tried to plan what they would do next, but her mind kept blinking out flashes of things she did not want to see: of Kaeldra’s capture, of the two little draclings, of Alys. She wondered what had befallen Alys. Had she plunged into the river and drowned? Had the hunters seized her? Hurt her?
No. Lyf brushed the thought aside.
No.
She crouched in the mist, feeling her bloodbeat subside. The men’s voices sounded faintly, far away. She could see nothing—nothing save for Owyn and the pile of sleeping draclings—and beyond, the tips of reeds and encircling fog. Owyn slept; Smoak rode gently up and down on his chest, in rhythm with Owyn’s breathing.
They were alone.
They could not go home—nor to Yanil, nor to Alys. Kael-dra and Jeorg were captives, and Lyf had no means of finding Alys’s friend.
There was no one in the whole wide world to take care of them now.
Harper’s Tale
Not a single boat was to be had in all of Tyneth.
The harper begged, bargained, lied, cajoled, offered to buy. But all were on the river, chasing draclings.
CHAPTER 13
Bird Kenning
As the day wore on, the fog grew thin and then burned off entirely. Lyf did not dare venture from the reed-screened hummock where they lay, for fear they would be seen. The voices came more rarely now, and yet come they did, rising over the rustling of reeds and the sluggish plash of marshy water, rising from this direction and then that—sometimes faintly, sometimes so clear and loud that Lyf clenched with fear and sent out a fearful
Sunlight streamed in shafts through the veil of reeds. It sent up clouds of steam from Lyf’s sodden gown, warming her through. It played across Owyn’s freckled face and struck sparks of shimmering light off the draclings’ scales. Beneath the fragrance of blossoms and tender green shoots swelled the marshy reek of decay.
Owyn woke, foraged round for mallow grass, and nibbled off the feathery young tops. Lyf found a cluster of purple-blooming marshwort; she tugged up the stalks and shared the roots with Owyn. Hush,” she told him, when he asked when they would leave. “The searchers are still about.”
“But when will we find Mama?” he insisted.
“Soon,” she said, having no idea when soon would come—if ever.
Owyn drowsed again, nestled in with the heap of draclings. They slumbered as well, twitching their tails from time to time at the stinging bugs and, perhaps disturbed by some dragonish dream, snorting out tendrils of bluish smoke. Lyf silently called to the little ones, now gone.
Nothing.
A wave of aching engulfed her.
Still, it was good that the other draclings slept, for she had nothing to feed them. Lyf wondered if Alys’s potion still held or if they always slept so much.
Alys.
Lyf let herself think of Alys—truly think of her—for the first time since falling into the river.
Had she drowned? But no. Surely she had not. Surely she had gone safe to dry land.
But what then? The hunters knew by now that she had smuggled draclings out of the inn—as did her brother. What would they do to her? How would her life be now?
She had owed, Alys said, but had she owed this much?
Would I have risked my life, Lyf wondered, if I had not been forced to?
No. She knew she would not have. She would have been too fearful for herself.
And now Alys was . . . wherever she was. And Lyf and the draclings were alone.
What should they do now?
If only Lyf had asked where Alys’s friend lived. But she hadn’t. She didn’t know.
There was but one frail thread to go on. Kaeldra had spoken of a last remaining mother dragon, in a cave far to the north. “Where the land meets the Northern Sea,” she had said.
But how far that was, Lyf did not know. Nor where, exactly. Where the land meets the Northern Sea was not much to go by.
Still, it was all they had.
A damselfty went humming past, a shimmer of blue. Nearby, a butterfly sunned itself drunkenly on a clump of steeple-brush blooms. Their perfume lay thick and sweet in the air.
How might she find it? Lyf wondered. That dragon cave. How?
Bloodflies gathered in drowsy, buzzing clouds, raising welts on Lyf’s hands and neck. Her head began to ache. Tired. She was tired. Her thoughts came muzzy, confused. She couldn’t think.
She let her gaze linger on the slow movement of breath in the draclings’ sides, on the rise and fall of Owyn’s belly. She leaned back, felt the egg humming against her. The air droned, warm and lulling
“ A untie Lyf!”
She opened her eyes.
“Auntie Lyf, look!”
A jolt of terror shot through her. She sat up fast, dumping Kindle off. She scanned the marsh for the hunters, but she could not see far. A chill mist had stolen in through the reeds, clinging to earth and water. She must have slept through the better part of the day.
“Look there, ” Owyn said.
Lyf gazed up to where he pointed—and then she saw.
The draclings were floating.
She counted six of them—no, seven—no, eight. They hovered in the mist, just above the reeds.
Kaeldra had told her of this, that draclings floated in their sleep. Lyf wondered why she had never seen them floating before. She thought back to the many times she had been with them as they slept: in the stump, at Yanil’s cottage, in Yanil’s cart, at the inn. Had they been floating all along . . . while she was sleeping?
They made no move to obey, but bobbled gently, rising slowly, like wyffel fluff on the air. One more dracling drifted up from among the ghostly reeds, and then another.
Ten. All but Kindle.
A sudden lick of blue flame; one of the draclings sank down. A puff of bluish smoke mingled with the mist.
Lyf reached out to touch the draclings’ minds. Silence.
They were sleeping.
Another burst of flame; a second dracling drifted lower, then began again to rise. Lyf crept cautiously to her feet, not knowing quite what to do. A sea of shoulder-high reeds hemmed them in for as far as she could see. She could not tell how far the marsh stretched, for it was blurred in all directions by fog. She could not see the river they had come from. Higher up, the fog thinned and Lyf caught glimpses of blue sky. A blue trail of smoke twisted up from where the last dracling had flamed, wafting beyond the mist into clear air.
“How long have they been doing this?” Lyf asked.
“I don’t know,” Owyn said. “They were doing it when I woke.”
“If the hunters are still about, they’ll find us by the smoke!”
Before, there had been only the wispiest breaths of smoke. But this flaming . . .
Perhaps they had not been floating and flaming for long, Lyf hoped.
> “Draclings, come down!” Owyn shouted.
Three draclings coughed out flame in startlement; two of them plummeted into the reeds at Lyf’s feet. One, farther afield, plunged into the water with a splash.
“Hush, Owyn! The searchers might still be near.”
“Why?” Owyn asked.
“Because they want to kill the draclings.”
“Why?”
Lyf sighed. Was this a serious why or just a ploy to keep her talking? At any pass, it was too tangled—and too gruesome—to explain. “Just because, Owyn. Just because.”
Silently she pleaded, coaxed, commanded the remaining draclings to come down, but they either would not or could not. Awake now, they peered curiously down at her with green, slotted eyes. Their bodies seemed rounder than before. Bloated. Their wings, half-extended, were still.
The one named Skorch floated just above Lyf’s head. If he kept on rising he would soon drift beyond her grasp. She stood on tiptoe and took hold of the dracling’s leg. His wings gave a sudden, jerky flutter, but he did not otherwise protest. Gently, Lyf pulled him down until she could set her hands on his back between his wings and push. It was not difficult-like pushing a big chunk of floating cork down through water. When he rested on the ground, Lyf drew in a deep breath, wiped the sweat from her hands. She brought down another dracling in this way, then a third. They did not seem to mind, but by the time the third one was down, Sko-rch had bobbled up again and floated knee-high. Lyf started to push him down again, but he fluttered his wings and squirted forward, eluding her.
“You little guttersharp,” she muttered, lunging at him. She caught him and set him on the ground, less gently than before.
But now the other draclings had discovered the game, and they did not want to abandon it. Lyf stumbled across the hummock after them, trying to avoid stepping on the ones on the ground. Owyn began to laugh. “It’s not funny!” she snapped. “Help me!” Owyn gleefully lunged after the draclings, but even the ones he wrestled to the ground soon rose again.
Stupid things! She was trying to save them; didn’t they understand? She should leave them here to be discovered— she should.
“Lie down!” she ordered Owyn, and when he did, she plucked a dracling out of the air and stuffed it under his legs. Then she packed one beneath each of his arms. Owyn giggled as the draclings buoyed him up, arms and legs and back, until only his seat touched the ground. Then the one beneath his legs wriggled out from under and floated into the air. “Hold him!” Lyf said, but it was too late.
This ploy wasn’t going to serve; Lyf could see that now.
Skorch drifted up before her. Teasing her?
“Do you want them to catch you?” Lyf asked. “The hunters? The soldiers?” How could she make them see?
Lyf made a picture in her mind of the boats that had come after them in the fog. She recalled the pain, the pain in her head.
Skorch spat out flame, alit with a thud at her feet.
Fear. Lyf could feel his fear. She could feel it pouring out to the other draclings, infecting them.
Flame!
Flame!
Flame!
Within moments, they were all on the ground.
“Well,” Lyf said. “Well.” She heaved out a breath, relieved.
But ghostly spiderwebs of smoke wafted up from where the flaming had been, signaling their whereabouts for all to see.
They would have to leave—and now.
But where? They had no destination—only a feeble hope.
North. All hope lay to the north.
They set off through the marsh. At first, the westering sun hung low above the mist, staining it the color of muskmelon flesh. But the sun was sinking and the mist was rising; before long the mist engulfed them completely and the sun was but a smoky orange smudge. Still, Lyf could reckon north by it; she doggedly bore that way. Though it was not easy, heading north. Ever and again she had to veer off course to skirt the edges of deep pools or patches of ominous-looking mud.
And ever she worried about hunters.
Owyn had revived and matched her pace, beating the air with two sticks he had found and making soft-voiced booms. The draclings romped through the marsh, vanishing into the mist and then reappearing suddenly beside her. They flung themselves into the deepest pools and channels and shook off water in sheets when they came to dry ground. Some of them began to play at flying. At first Lyf forbade them, fearing that they might be seen. They heeded her better now, or perhaps it was Skorch whom they minded. But as the mist grew thicker, and even Skorch began to fly, Lyf let it go. For a long while, she had had neither sight nor sound of hunters. Surely none would see.
The draclings floated up into the air, wobbling, reeling side to side, pumping their frail-looking wings. Sometimes they crashed through the reeds to land; sometimes they belched out flame and plummeted to the ground. Lyf fretted that they might set something afire—and yet everything was damp. Too damp, surely, to burn.
Lyf fretted too that the draclings would begin plaguing her with their bungries. But that fear was soon put to rest. She noticed at times that they sat stone still, gazing intently at something she could not see in the water. Then they would plunge in headfirst and come up chomping. Chomping . . . what, Lyf wondered? But then she marked a frog’s kicking leg before it disappeared between the curve of needle-sharp teeth.
Frogs must be slower than twitchmice.
And still, neither sight nor sound of hunters. In time, this gave Lyf comfort. Foolish comfort, she knew, for the mist now eddied so thickly about that she could not have seen them, were they only as far away as a cottage is wide. The smudge of sun had faded, and yet she thought she could remember where it had been.
They slogged through the mire, keeping to the clumps of reeds as often as they might, but forced at times to wade through knee-high water, thigh-high water. The reek of marsh rot grew stronger now, drowning out the fragrance of flowers. Reeds slashed at Lyf’s and Owyn’s hands and necks and faces, leaving fine traceries of blood. Lyf’s kirtle grew sodden and draggled; the egg hung heavier with every step. Kindle rode upon her shoulders and, though her neck was cramping up, Lyf couldn’t dislodge her, lest the dracling be lost, like her siblings.
Now Owyn lagged behind no matter how often Lyf stopped to wait for him. From time to time he sat down in the mud, refusing to go on. Then Lyf would haul him up and balance the solid mass of him on one hip, turning her head so that he could not see the tears that streaked her face. Her eyes and back and legs and arms and hands all ached. Her feet grew cold and numb—all but the places where the blisters had popped. These burned like fire. Her stomach gnawed painfully, whether only from hunger or from the bitter mallows as well Lyf did not know or care. She was weary to the bone.
Darkness thickened around them, seeming to seep up from the water into the reeds. Yet it was not nearly so dark as in the forest. A swollen half-moon floated in the mist, infusing it with a milky radiance.
How wide was this marsh? Surely they would come to the end of it soon!
The chirp of frogs filled the night, broken at times by ominous swishes and splashes and stretches of unfathomable silence. The bloodflies had gone, but Lyf soon discovered a worse pestilence. When they trudged up out of the muck to a dry hummock, Lyf saw a dark blob on Owyn’s neck.
A leech.
Swallowing a scream, she plucked it off and flung it down. Owyn cried out, moving his hand to touch the trickle of blood where the leech had been. Another leech, clinging to his wrist. She pulled it off, then saw the leech on her own arm. She did scream then, but before she could rip it off, Skorch was there, was licking her arm with a long, forked tongue, and the leech was gone. Lyf screamed again, waving him away, then stood watching him chew, watching him gulp and lick his chops.
The draclings gathered about them. Lyf felt them nuzzling at the backs of her legs, snuffling at her hands. Owyn slumped down on the hummock and let them nuzzle him all over. Lyf
hesitated, then sat down and gave herself over to the draclings’ leech pickings, her stomach knotted in revulsion.
She couldn’t abide this! They had to get out of this odious swamp! She couldn’t stay here overnight. Couldn’t.
There was a sudden rattling in the reeds before her: a heron, mounting up through the fog. She almost threw her kenning out to meet it, then held back.
It was perilous—too perilous.
Owyn crawled into her lap, crowding out two draclings. He clung to her, shaking with sobs. Tears plowed through furrows in the grime on his face.
More rattling: another heron.
She would chance it, this once.
“I’m going to ken with that bird,” she murmured to Owyn, not knowing if he would understand. “Stay here. Don’t go away.”
She threw her thoughts up to the heron. The birdness closed in around her; the ground tipped and swayed below She could hear fish breathing under water. She could smell snakes and moths and grubs. She winged up through the thinning mists and came out into a clear, dark sky, speckled with stars. There were hills ahead, dry hills. There were . . .
A deep, fast pulsing of blood; it merged with her own, and her troubles dropped away behind.
Harper’s Tale
Nysien had tidings.
The harper met up with him at dusk that day. The younglings were safe, Nysien said. He had it from an honest fisherman that a friend had taken them all downriver—Lyf, Owyn, and the draclings. They were journeying, Nysien said, to the cave of the last mother dragon.
And—by sheerest luck—Nysien had procured a boat. They could follow along the route Lyf had taken.
That Nysien!
Wasn’t he a marvel, my ladies?
Perhaps too much of one, was what Jeorg and the harper wondered. But Kaeldra, full of new hope, could not bear even to think it.
CHAPTER 14
Lunedwech
The smell brought her up—a sharp, acrid stench that sent tears springing into her eyes. From somewhere above came a faint, soft, tinkfy sound. Lyf opened her eyes. Overhead, the sun and moon and stars were spinning, shimmering, chiming. Glints of colorful light swam before her. She heard voices, faraway voices, becoming brighter and brighter, as if she were swimming up toward them from the bottom of a clear, dark lake.
Sign of the Dove Page 11
