Dragonjacks: Book 1 - The Shepherd: A Dragons of Cadwaller Novel

by Vickie Knestaut

  “Hey!” one of the riders called. “Don’t let him near her.”

  Brath spun and held his arms out at his side. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Tyber gestured at the injured wing with the tool roll. “Ander told me to mend her wing.”

  “Like you mended Pendro?” Ehner said, his hands curling into fists at his side.

  “What’s the problem?” Ander called from Verana’s side.

  “I don’t want him touching my dragon!” Ehner called.

  “Why?” Ander replied.

  “After what he did to Pendro?”

  Ander approached. “What do you propose, then? We just leave her out here in the open? Should I send someone to fetch your things and a tent for you?”

  Ehner looked from Ander to Brath, then turned around and pulled at his hair again.

  Sanda tried to fold her wings behind herself. The flap of loose flesh draped the side of her like a leather apron.

  Brath turned to Ehner. “She’s as good as dead now. Might as well let Tyber have at her. I don’t think he can kill her with a needle and thread, but if he does, it’ll go easier for you.”

  Ehner’s hands fell to his sides. He stared at the injured wing a moment more, then nodded without turning away.

  “Go,” Ander said as he laid a hand on Tyber’s shoulder.

  Tyber rounded Brath, leaving the commander between himself and Ehner, and hurried on. Ren rounded from the other side, his own tool roll clutched at his side. “Need a hand?”

  Tyber nodded. Together, the two of them took the leading edge of the wing, and with a little effort and patience, extended it enough to get a look at the injury.

  Ren hissed. “Look there.” He pointed to a splotch of redness along the third phalangeal strut. It was a long streak of red bordered with puffy white.

  “How did he not see that on inspection?” Ren asked, his voice low. “Those lesions don’t form overnight. It’s like they don’t care!” Ren’s voice was stiff with anger.

  Tyber sighed. “This’ll never work.”

  “And you say you’re not a dragon healer,” Ren deadpanned.

  “Ander!” Tyber called.

  The dragoneer approached, Brath at his side.

  “What is it?” Ander asked.

  “A mess,” Ren said.

  Tyber gestured at the lesion.

  Ander walked around to the trailing edge of the wing and got as close to the lesion as he could. He peered hard at it.

  “Ehner,” Ander called, then motioned for the rider.

  He approached slowly, casting his gaze to the ground.

  “Did you not see this on inspection?” Ander asked, gesturing at the wing.

  Ehner stared for a long moment at the wound. He swallowed hard, then looked to Ander. “I didn’t.”

  “Did you do an inspection before we left?”

  An artery throbbed at the temple of Ehner’s narrow, sharp face. “What does it matter?”

  “It matters in that now your dragon is injured a good distance from the weyr. I doubted we had enough thread to sew this up to begin with, but now I see that there’s not enough healthy flesh for Tyber to anchor the stitches to.”

  Ehner glared at Tyber as if it was all his fault.

  “Ehner,” Ander said.

  The man turned on Ander, swinging his fist. Ander barely dodged, then started to throw an undercut into Ehner’s belly. Before he could land it, Ren tackled Ehner around the midsection. The two men crashed into Sanda’s side. She struggled to her feet quickly and hissed at them. Ehner socked Ren on the head. They twisted on the ground as the others shouted out their encouragement. Ander grasped Ren by the shoulders and yanked him off, holding him back as Ehner stood and took a step forward.

  “Ehner!” Brath thundered.

  The rider stopped.

  “I am going to tell The Shepherd that my back was turned. That I was trying to save the dragon, and that I didn’t see you slip off.”

  He raised his voice and looked at the other riders. “That goes for any of you, too!”

  The dragonjacks nodded.

  Ehner looked back to his dragon, staring at Sanda a moment longer. She extended her neck and sniffed at him. He held out his trembling hand, holding it inches from her muzzle. She stretched a little more and nudged his fingers. He stroked her scales.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hardly over a whisper. “I really am.”

  He pulled his hand back as if burned, and then turned away, watching the ground as he plunged forward and parted the grass between Sanda and Brath.

  “Ehner!” Ander barked.

  “Let him go,” Brath said, holding up his palm. “It’s our way. If you can walk away, we let you go. You get a chance to outrun The Shepherd. It’s everyone’s right.”

  Ren shrugged himself out of Ander’s grip. “Outrun The Shepherd?”

  Brath pulled a long knife from his belt and stared at Sanda as she watched her rider go.

  Tyber shook his head slowly. “The Shepherd has no more use for him. Not if he has no dragon to ride.”

  Brath nodded at him. “I knew you were the bright one.”

  The commander stepped toward Sanda, positioning his knife as if to slice the dragon’s throat.

  “Whoa!” Ander called, then grasped Brath’s arm. “What in the wilds are you doing!”

  Brath glared at Ander. “The only kind thing. She can’t fly anymore. She’s never going to fly again, for all the sky. She’s got the rot, and none of the dragons recover from it. What would you do, you fool? Leave her out here to be spotted by any passing horde of the King?”

  He yanked his arm away from Ander.

  “No,” Ander said, leveling a finger at Brath. “No, don’t you hurt that dragon. If need be, we’ll walk the dragon back to the weyr. How often do patrols fly past?”

  Brath sneered. “And then what? We just let her sit around the weyr and rot beside Cetteth? Or maybe, since Cetteth can’t bear a saddle, you might get Tyber here to take a wing from her and stitch it onto Sanda?”

  Brath cocked an eyebrow, but there was no humor in his voice.

  “Put the knife away. You harm that dragon, and I will do the same to you.”

  Brath stared a few seconds more, his face reddening with anger.

  Sanda let out a whine and started to turn toward Ehner.

  “Grab her!” Brath called, but Ander had already reached up under the lip of the saddle and yanked the coil of braided leather down. He tossed it to Ren, who caught it and dug his heels in against an anticipated pull. Tyber ran over and took up the cord as well.

  Sanda let out another whine, lifting her face to the sky and spreading her wings.

  Ehner never looked back, but lowered his face even farther, his pace quickening.

  How could he do that? How could he just walk away?

  Sanda let out a third whine, almost a bark, and then she pulled at the cord, drawing Ren and Tyber several stuttering steps forward before she stopped, then sat in the grass.

  “Tyber,” Ander said, “stitch that wing up the best you can. Work on the lesion last if you have any thread left over. Once you're done, walk her back to the weyr.”

  “Walk her?” Ren asked.

  “You stitch her up, if you think you must,” Brath said to Tyber, then turned to Ander. “I’ll head back to the weyr and fetch Myler. He can walk her back to the weyr. It’ll give him something to do besides mope over Cetteth.”

  Ander nodded.

  Brath started toward Irvess. He limped a little more than usual and held his back extra tight.

  “You boys get to work on that wing,” Ander said, then tossed his tool kit at them. Tyber dropped the cord and caught the kit in the air.

  “Good catch,” Ren said, then looked back to Sanda. “Can this possibly get any worse?”

  Tyber looked at Rius. She held her head high and watched Tyber’s every move. Her scales remained dry, her wings free of the soft, white flesh.

  “I
t could get a good deal worse, actually,” Tyber said, then turned his attention to Sanda’s wing.

  The dragon would not lay down, and eventually Tyber gave up coaxing her to do so. Mending the wound while the dragon sat up proved to be awkward, but since the tear was toward the distal end of the wing, it was easy to reach without too much trouble, as long as he remained in a crouch. After stitching together about a foot of the rent, the grass rustled with a rider’s approach.

  Halton stepped up to Tyber.

  “Need some help?” Halton asked.

  Tyber stood and stretched his back.

  “You can hold this,” Ren said, lifting up the edge of the torn flesh that he had been holding in place for Tyber.

  “There’s not much else to do, unless you want to start on the trailing edge,” Tyber said, gesturing with his needle at the other end of the wing.

  “I can’t… sew? Is that what you call it?” he asked as he surveyed Tyber’s work.

  “Mending,” Ren said. “We call it mending.”

  “You learned that at the academy?” Halton asked.

  An exhausted, frustrated smile passed over Tyber’s face. “It’s where they taught us, yes, but I haven’t actually done it before. Not on a real dragon.”

  “A real dragon?” Halton asked.

  “They made fake wings for us at the academy,” Ren said. “With leather and iron. They look pretty real. And then they punch holes in them with arrows or rent them along the edges with knives. We had to sew them—mend them back up. And old Master Gravy—”

  “Gury,” Tyber corrected.

  “—is a real stickler about it. But yeah, this is the first time we’ve done it for real.”

  Halton shook his head as he stared at the tiny white X’s that marched along the tear, holding the edges of the separated flesh together so that they might heal faster.

  “Would you guys go back?” Halton asked as he continued to stare at the wing rent. “If given a chance? Would you go back to the academy?”

  “Wilds, no,” Ren said with a shake of his head. “Not for anything.”

  “Why do you ask that?” Tyber asked.

  “You two and Ander,” Halton said. “You guys act like you know so much. Like you’re better than all of us put together. But then…” he gestured at the wing. “You guys know how to do things like that.”

  “Well what in the wilds do you guys do? When you have a wing rent or a puncture?” Ren asked.

  Halton shrugged. “The punctures usually heal themselves. Knot up into scar tissue.”

  “What!” Ren barked.

  “And the rents? Well, I guess it depends on how bad it was.”

  Halton looked over his shoulder as if searching for someone, then looked back to Tyber. “You saw what Brath was going to do to Sanda.”

  “That’s crazy,” Ren went on.

  Halton shrugged. “She can’t fly. What else are you going to do with her? She’ll just eat up our food. We can’t afford to take care of dragons who can’t earn their keep.”

  Tyber watched Halton glance at Gurvi, and he knew that look. Knew it as if he was staring into a mirror.

  “What would you do?” Tyber asked.

  Halton’s attention snapped back to him as if he’d been caught at something red-handed. “What? What do you mean?”

  Tyber nodded at Gurvi, who had laid down among the grass with several other dragons. She’d spread her wings as if soaking up the sun’s rays.

  “What would you do to save her?”

  Halton shifted. He looked at Gurvi again, then back to Tyber. “That’s really what I was asking about. Why I came over here. Do you think you can teach me how to do that? How to mend?”

  “Do you know how to sew?” Ren asked.

  Halton shook his head. “That’s what the women do.”

  “He just called you a woman, Tyber.”

  “I mean about the rot,” Tyber said, ignoring Ren. “What would you do to save Gurvi from the rot?”

  Halton’s face grew tight, slightly pale. He swallowed and looked from the lesion on Sanda’s wing to Gurvi and back. The man appeared to be near panic with the answer.

  “Would you do anything?”

  “Tyber…” Ren warned.

  “Like what?” Halton asked.

  “Tyber, you have a dragon to mend,” Ren insisted.

  “Would you give her up?”

  Halton looked out across the plains, in the direction that Ehner, Brath, and Irvess had all disappeared. He shook his head. “Ehner has to try, but he won’t make it. The Shepherd has men everywhere. They’ll catch up to him soon enough.”

  He looked back to Tyber. “You don’t ever quit The Shepherd.”

  Ren cleared his throat.

  “What if there was no Shepherd?” Tyber asked.

  Halton let out an uncomfortable chuckle. He shook his head. “No Shepherd? That’s just stupid. If he even heard that you were talking like this…”

  Halton took a step back as if Tyber now had the rot.

  Tyber glanced at Rius. She sat upright, surveying the grasses around them. She looked to Tyber, met his gaze.

  “If I could,” Tyber said with a soft nod.

  “Could what?” Halton asked.

  Tyber turned to Halton. “I mean, I would. To save Rius. If I had to, if it was the only way to save her, I’d leave her. I’d let her go.”

  “The Shepherd would get you,” Halton said. “You saw what happened to Sirvon. The moment The Shepherd no longer had a use for him…” He shook his head.

  “To save Rius? I’d do it. I’d do whatever I had to.”

  Halton stared at Tyber for a few tense seconds.

  “Come on, Ty,” Ren said. “My arm’s growing tired here. Either stitch this baby up or give me the wild needle.”

  Tyber nodded. He held the needle up before himself. The thread ran from the eye down to the wing of Sanda.

  “This is a special kind of thread made from the ligaments of deer,” Tyber said. “It’s not like yarn or string. You have to use this. I’ll show you how to thread it later, when I run out. But here’s how you stitch up a wing. Watch.”

  Tyber bent over Sanda’s wing, and Halton peered over his shoulder.

  Chapter 22

  The sun had set, and the eyes of the gods were present to watch Myler emerge from the grass and lead the limping Sanda into the yard. She was taken into the weyr, and there she collapsed, moving only to drink when a trough of water was placed before her. Tyber looked her over beneath the light of several lanterns, but there was nothing new to see. Nothing more that could be done but to let her rest and rot.

  Though Sanda had returned, Ehner did not. Neither of the women cried at his absence, at least not in Tyber’s presence, but there remained a tension in the others that lingered over the next two days. There was no laughter in the weyr. Meals were quiet. And Ander did not bother with any more flight exercises. Brath was content to let the signaling lessons go as well.

  The tension in the horde peaked when a boy raced into the weyr and pointed toward the road.

  “The Shepherd is coming!” he said, then retreated back to the stone house.

  Tyber filed out into the yard with the others and watched as ten horses came up the road. The Shepherd sat in the lead. He nodded to them as he approached, then slowed his horse with a tug of his reins.

  “You’re still alive,” The Shepherd said to Ander. “That must mean things are going well.”

  “We’ve come to an understanding,” Ander said. “A workable agreement.”

  The Shepherd surveyed them. The grin started to fade. “One of you is missing.”

  “Ehner,” Brath said, straightening his back. “He slipped away. None of us saw him leave.”

  The Shepherd arched an eyebrow. He nodded to the stone house. “And his family?”

  “None, Sir,” Brath said.

  The Shepherd nodded, then turned back to Ander. “You’re not driving off my employees, are you? Or did you have to drop
one to make an example?”

  “His dragon—” Brath began.

  “Silence!” The Shepherd shouted at him, then pointed to Ander. “I was speaking to you.”

  Ander folded his arms behind his back. “We were conducting flight exercises. His mount’s wing tore. Badly. It was a wonder that they didn’t break their necks on landing. I’ve had the dragon’s wing mended, but the rider slipped off all the same.”

  “Mended?” The Shepherd asked.

  “Stitched with sinew. It will aid the healing.”

  “Healing?” The Shepherd asked, and in any other circumstance, Tyber would have cracked a grin at The Shepherd’s echoing of Ander.

  “Well,” The Shepherd said, looking up and around as if Ehner might still be lurking along the edges of the yard. “Pity for him that he didn’t break his neck.”

  The Shepherd turned to Ricard. “You will see that his employment is terminated properly.”

  The leather-clad man nodded. He turned his attention to Ander and fixed him with a hard glare.

  “So,” The Shepherd went on, turning to Ander as well. “You have Ehner’s dragon, then? How long before she can fly?”

  Ander took a deep breath. “She’s quite sick. I don’t know that she will fly again.”

  The Shepherd smiled as if Ander had made a joke. “You don’t think she’ll fly again?”

  “The rot is pretty extensive. It runs along the third phalangeal strut. There wasn’t enough—”

  The Shepherd shook his head, held up his palm, and through a grin asked, “The third phalangeal strut?”

  He looked to the weyr. “Never mind. Bring the dragon out here. Let me have a look at her. Now.”

  Ander nodded at Brath. In turn, Brath motioned for Halton to carry out the order. Halton started for the weyr at a run.

  “While we wait on him, let me tell you why I stopped by in the first place,” The Shepherd said. “Your mere existence means that you have passed the first test, Ander. My congratulations.”

  “I will meet any challenge laid before me,” Ander said with a nod.

  “Glad to hear it. Now, for the second test, I am going to ask you to run an errand for me.”

  The Shepherd turned to Brath. “Do you remember Storbin?”