Dragon Keeper

by Robin Hobb

  Tats was silent behind her. She didn’t want to look back at him; he’d think she was seeking his guidance. Nor did she want to see Sylve’s face right now. Surely they could see how Greft was twisting everything? Wanting to take care of her friends first was not selfishness. Speak plainly and all would be right. She took a breath. “I killed that elk by myself, Greft. And I decide who I’ll share the meat with. I chose Tats. And Sylve, because she helped me. I didn’t choose you, or Boxter, or Kase. And you can’t have the meat.”

  Greft made a show of looking at the sky. He couldn’t see it through the canopy, but all of them knew that evening would soon plunge them into darkness. “You’d rather let the meat rot or be eaten by scavengers than let us have some of it? There’s still more than half an elk there, Thymara, more than you three can haul back in one trip, I’ll wager. And you haven’t time to make another trip. Be sensible, not selfish. It hurts you nothing to share this. Boxter’s dragon didn’t make a kill today, and Kase’s got a fish, but not a big one. They’re hungry.”

  She knew she should choose her words carefully, but she was so angry at how he was making it seem. “Then they should go hunting for meat for their dragons, just as I did! Not wait and take mine! I’ve a dragon to feed, too, you know. In fact, I’ve two dragons to feed.”

  “And both of them were sleeping with bulging bellies when last I saw them,” Greft replied smoothly.

  “Mine isn’t!” Sylve blurted out suddenly. “Mercor has fed, but not well, even though he is too brave and noble to complain. And Tats’s little copper fellow probably got nothing at all. He needs meat, not this argument! Please, can’t we just take the meat back to the camp and settle it there?”

  “That seems wisest to me,” Greft abruptly agreed. He glanced back at Kase and Boxter. “Do you both agree?”

  Boxter nodded. Kase, his copper eyes gleaming in the gathering gloom, hunched his shoulders. Greft turned back to Thymara. “Then it’s all settled. We’ll see you when you get back to the river.”

  “It’s not all settled!” Thymara snarled, but Tats put a warm hand on her shoulder. She felt the weight of it, but she wondered if he was reassuring her that he was with her or holding her back from what he regarded as foolishness. He spoke past her to Greft.

  “It will be all settled when we get back to the river. We all know night is coming on and we can’t waste time in arguing right now. But it’s not all settled, Greft. I agree that meat should be shared, but not the way you’re doing it.”

  Greft’s narrow lips moved. It might have been a smile or a sneer. “Of course, Tats. Of course. We’ll see you back at the river.” He suddenly leaned into the load he was pulling, and Thymara found herself stepping aside, back into the pressing brush behind her, to allow him to pass. Boxter and Kase came behind him, and both of them were plainly grinning. Kase spoke in a low voice as he passed her. “Only fair to get a share of meat if you’ve done work for it,” he observed.

  “No one asked you to do any work!” she growled after him. He kept walking. “It’s like paying a thief because he worked hard to rob your house!” She raised her voice to hurl the words after him.

  “No! It’s like giving your workers a share of the harvest!” he shouted back. She drew breath to point out that merely taking the harvest was not working for it when Tats spoke again. She realized then that he’d never let go of her shoulder, for he tightened his grip on her as he said, “Not now, Thymara. Focus on the most important thing. We need to get that meat back to the river before nightfall. And before the insects get any worse.”

  “Parasites!” she snarled after them, and then turned away. “The meat is this way. Or what’s left of it!” She strode angrily through the forest.

  Tats was right. The stinging little pests had already begun to swarm around them. Biting insects were never absent in the Rain Wilds, but the evening always brought them out in droves. Well, at least the thieves had broken a better trail for them to follow. She wanted to rant and rave as she thudded along but saved her breath.

  When they reached the carcass, she heard the small sounds of several little scavengers scampering away. The smallest ones, the ants and beetles, had already flocked to the feast and were undeterred by the arrival of the humans. They swarmed over the elk’s body, congregating in black, shimmering masses wherever the raw flesh was exposed.

  Tats had thought to bring a small hatchet. It was messy, for the blade flung blood and bits of meat on every swing, but between it and her knife they cut the rest of the elk into manageable hunks much faster than she could have done alone. She grumbled as she did so. Greft and his cohorts had taken the most manageable parts of the elk. They cut the head and neck free, and then divided the trunk into the rib cage and haunches. It stank as they cut through the torso. The guts would spill and string; there was nothing they could do about it. They could have left them, but Thymara knew that to the dragons they were a delicacy.

  Tats had brought more rope as well. It was almost annoying to think of how well prepared he always seemed to be. They spoke little, working swiftly. Thymara tried to focus on what she was doing rather than let her simmering anger interfere. Tats was his quiet, competent self, limiting his words to conversation about the task at hand. Sylve hung back on the edges of the operation, stepping in to help whenever she was asked, but keeping silent in a way that began to bother Thymara. She wondered if the blood and stink bothered the girl.

  “Sylve, are you all right? You know, some people just can’t do this kind of thing. It makes them sick. If you need to step back from it, just say so.”

  She saw Sylve give her head a shake, sending her hanks of hair flying wildly around her pink scalp. She had a strange look on her face, as if she didn’t want to be there but couldn’t bring herself to leave.

  “I think,” Tats said, between grunts as he fastened rope harnesses to each chunk of meat, “that Greft’s arguments . . . made Sylve uncomfortable. She’s wondering—hold that while I tie this knot, would you?—if you resent her taking a share of the meat.”

  The girl turned her face aside abruptly, her hurt so obvious that it smote Thymara. “Sylve! Of course not! I invited you to come and help with this, and of course you deserve some of the meat. I said I’d take care of the silver, and instead that task fell to you. Even if you hadn’t come, if you told me that your dragon needed meat, I’d help you. You know that.”

  Sylve lifted bloodstained hands to wipe her cheeks before turning back to Thymara. Thymara winced. She knew that when you were that far along in being scale-faced, it hurt when you cried. Sylve sniffed. “You said they were thieves,” she said thickly. “Well, how am I different?”

  “It’s different because you didn’t take it without asking! It’s different because you were helping me with the silver dragon for no other reason than that is how you are. It’s different because you put in before you take out. Those three don’t care anything about any dragons but their own.”

  Sylve lifted the front edge of her tunic to dab at her messy face. She spoke from its shelter. “How is that different from us? We’re only talking about feeding our own dragons.”

  “But that was the deal!” Thymara almost exploded. “That was the agreement that each of us signed. Each of us said we’d be responsible for a dragon. And here we are, we each have two to worry about. Without some ignorant louts coming in and poaching our hard-earned meat. Well, they’re not going to get away with it!” As she’d spoken, Thymara had slid her arms into the makeshift harness that Tats had created. She had the front end of the carcass with the rib cage. Tats had taken the heavy hindquarter for himself. Without saying a word, they’d agreed that little Sylve could drag the head and neck back. It was lighter than what they were hauling, but still not an easy load to get back to the river through all the brush and swamp.

  “Actually, I think it’s likely they will.” Tats spoke as he leaned into his load and followed her. Sylve came last of all, getting the advantage of the broken trail through the bru
sh.

  “Will what?”

  “Will get away with it. What we were just talking about. Greft and Kase and Boxter will get away with taking your meat.”

  “No, they won’t! Not when I tell everyone!”

  “By the time we get back, they will have told everyone the story their way. And it will seem to everyone who didn’t get a kill for their dragon today that it would only be sensible for you to share with everyone.” He added something else in a softer voice.

  “What?” she demanded, halting to look back at him.

  “I said,” he said defiantly, his ears turning a bit pink, “that in some ways it would be only sensible.”

  “What? What are you saying? That I should do all the work of hunting and making a kill, and then just give it away to everyone else?”

  “Keep pulling. Night’s coming on. Yes, that is what I’m saying. Because you’re a good hunter, probably the best we have. If you were free to hunt, and everyone else had to do the butchering and hauling the meat, you’d be able to get a lot more prey. And all the dragons would have a better chance of a real meal.”

  “But Skymaw would get less! A lot less. She should have had almost half an elk today. Your way, she’d get one-fifteenth. She’d starve on that!”

  “She’d get one-fifteenth of what everyone caught. I think you may be our best hunter, but you’re not our only one. Think about it, Thymara. There is you, and the three professional hunters, and some of the rest of us are not too bad at fishing and small game. Each dragon would be almost certain of getting at least something to eat every night.”

  She was sweating now as she dragged the meat through the forest. It was getting dark, and the mosquitoes and gnats had found her. She swiped angrily at her brow and then slapped the back of her neck, crushing half a dozen of the persistent bloodsuckers. “I can’t believe you’re taking Greft’s side,” she observed bitterly.

  “I’m not. I’m taking my side. Basically, it’s the deal you were ready to offer me, only expanded to include everyone.”

  She went on silently pulling her load, pushing her way past leaning branches and gritting her teeth every time she missed her footing and plunged ankle deep in muck. She was stingingly aware that Sylve could hear every word. She couldn’t just say to Tats that it was different, that he was her friend and her ally and she didn’t mind sharing with him. Not that she minded sharing with Sylve tonight; the girl had done her best to take care of the injured silver dragon. In a way, Thymara supposed that she was her partner now, since they’d both agreed to do what they could for the creature. In another moment, she became uncomfortably aware that she knew Sylve had only the smallest chance of keeping even one dragon alive, let alone volunteering to help with the silver, too. Maybe she owed the girl her help. She didn’t like the way that idea jabbed her. She didn’t want anyone depending on her, let alone have someone that she owed help to. And what about Rapskal? If he asked her for meat for his runty little Heeby, would she say no? He partnered with her every day in her boat, and he always did at least half the work there. So what did she owe him? Tats spoke at just the wrong moment.

  “You want me to take the lead for a while?”

  “No,” she replied curtly. No, she didn’t want anyone doing anything for her. Because who knew what she would owe them then?

  He should have known better than to say anything more. But a few moments later, he asked in a low voice, “So, what are you going to do when we get back to camp?”

  She’d been pondering that question herself. Having him poke her with it didn’t help her indecision. “What if I did nothing? Would that make me a coward?”

  He was quiet for a time. She slapped mosquitoes on the back of her neck and brushed her hands wildly over her ears, trying to drive them and their persistent buzzing away. “I think you’d be doing the sensible thing,” he said quietly.

  It surprised Thymara when Sylve spoke. “He’ll make you look selfish if you say anything. Turn everyone against you. Like he did with Tats that night. Saying he wasn’t one of us.” The girl was huffing and puffing. Her words came in short bursts. Thymara was rapidly realizing that Sylve was not the little girl she had thought she was. She was younger, but she listened and she thought about what she heard. “Ouch! Stupid branch!” she complained abruptly and then went on, “Greft is like that. He can seem so nice, but there’s a mean part of him. He talks like he wants good things for everyone. Changes, he says. But then he has those other times. And you see that he has a mean part of him. He scares me. He talked to me once, for a long time, and, well, sometimes I think that if I stay away from him, that’s the safest thing to do. Other times I think that if I don’t find a way to be one of his friends, that will be the most dangerous thing.”

  Silence fell except for their breathing, the sounds of their loads bumping and dragging, and the normal night sounds of the forest. Insects buzzed all around Thymara’s head, almost as maddening as the thoughts buzzing inside her head. Thymara wondered just what Greft had said to Sylve in their “talk.” She feared she knew, and she felt fresh outrage. Tats broke their mutual reverie. “I’m scared of him for the same reasons. And one other. He has plans. He’s not just a fellow taking on a bad job for money or because it looks like an adventure. He’s thinking something about all this.”

  Thymara nodded. “He says he wants to make a place where he can change the rules.”

  For a time, they plodded on in silence, each pondering this. At last Tats said softly, “Rules exist for a reason.”

  “We don’t have any rules,” Sylve interjected.

  “Of course we do!” Thymara objected.

  “No, we don’t. Back home, there were our parents. And the Rain Wild Council, and the Traders, each with a vote to say what got done or didn’t happen. But we left all that behind. We signed contracts, but who is really in charge? Not Captain Leftrin. He’s only in charge of the boat, not us or the dragons. So who says what the rules are? Who enforces them?”

  “The rules are what they’ve always been,” Thymara replied doggedly, but she had an uneasy feeling that the girl was seeing things more clearly than she was. When Greft spoke of making changes, what could he be talking about except changing the rules they’d accepted all their lives? But he couldn’t do that. Could he?

  There was light breaking through the trees ahead of them, the fading evening light of the Rain Wild Forest. Somehow her legs found the strength to pick up their pace.

  “Hey! Hey! Where have you been? I was starting to get worried about you all! The hunters came in and brought a whole load of riverpigs. You should see, Thymara! There’s a whole one cooking on a spit for all to share, and the dragons got half a pig each. Hey! What you dragging? Did you kill something?”

  It was Rapskal, jumping and hopping as if he were a boy half his age. He stopped dead when he reached Thymara, staring at the meat she was dragging. “What was that thing?”

  “An elk,” she replied shortly.

  “An elk. That’s big! You were lucky, I guess. Greft got one, too. He said he brought the meat back to share with everyone, but it was all dirty and beat up and then the hunters brought the riverpig and started building a big fire, so Greft’s elk got fed to one of the dragons. Oh, you should come and see Heeby! She ate so much today, she looks like a stomach with a dragon wrapped around it. She snores when she’s full. You got to hear her to believe it!” Rapskal laughed joyously. He clapped Thymara on the shoulder. “Glad you’re back, because I’m starving. I didn’t want to eat until I found you and made sure you got a share, too!”

  They had emerged from the forest onto the muddy bank of tall reeds. Well, they had been tall when Thymara had last left. The activities of the dragons and their keepers had trampled most of them flat now. From where they stood, the barge with its welcoming lamps was easily visible. A campfire was burning; silhouetted against the flames was a large spit threaded with chunks of riverpig. Tats sniffed appreciatively and as if in response his stomach rumbled. They all l
aughed. The knot of Thymara’s anger loosened. She wondered if she could just let it go. If she did, would that mean Greft had won something from her?

  “Let’s go and eat!” Rapskal urged them.

  “Soon,” Thymara promised him. “First, this meat needs to go to any dragon who is still hungry. And we should check on Tats’s copper dragon. He said he wasn’t eating much.”

  “Well, I’m going to head down to the fire. I only left it to come and find you all. Hey, one of the hunters plays harp, that Carson, and there’s a woman from the barge who plays a pipe, and earlier they were playing some music together. So we might have music after we eat, too. Even dancing, if the mud lets us.” He stopped suddenly, and a slow wide grin spread across his face. “Isn’t this just the best time ever in your life?”

  “Go enjoy it, Rapskal,” Tats urged him.

  Rapskal looked at Thymara. “I’m starving,” he admitted, but then asked, “You’re coming soon, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. Go and eat.”

  He needed no other prompting. He left them at a run. Thymara watched his fleeing shadow as he rejoined the keepers clustered around the fire. She heard a shout of laughter go up at someone’s comment. A chunk of driftwood was thrown on the fire and a dazzling fountain of sparks flew up into the darkening sky.

  “It could be a wonderful time,” Sylve said quietly. “Tonight, with talk and food and music.”

  Thymara sighed and surrendered. “I won’t ruin it, Sylve. I’m not going to say anything to anyone about the elk meat and Greft tonight. I’d just sound argumentative and selfish. Here we are tonight, our first night with plenty of food and music. My quarrel with Greft will wait for another time.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” the girl said hastily.

  But when she didn’t say what she had meant, Tats filled in with, “Let’s take this meat to the dragons and go join the others by the fire.”