Shima’s idea of “not far” was certainly not Maurynna’s. It was, in her painful opinion, too damned far. She remembered Linden’s tale of how, when he was sixteen, he’d run away from home to join his cousin’s mercenary band. Fearful that his father would catch him first, Linden had ridden so hard and long that he’d arrived with bleeding saddle sores. Maurynna fervently hoped she was not about to share the same fate. But at last they reached their destination.
The campsite was a pocket in one of the red rock formations that thrust up from the earth with such abruptness. Shima led them around the base of the tower of stone to a crack in the living rock, barely wide enough to admit a horse and rider. But when they followed him inside, they found it expanded into a large open area surrounded by the towering rock. At the far end a spring bubbled out of the rock into a pool hewn from the stone. Coarse grass grew around the precious liquid. Above them, the stone swept up like a chimney; framed in the opening high above was one of the strange southern constellations. After the first glance, Maurynna refused to look at it again. That even the very stars were alien made home and everything she loved seem further away than ever.
Boreal halted at the edge of the grassy patch. Letting her saddlebag tumble from her tired hands, Maurynna attempted to lift herself from the saddle; her muscles screamed in protest and refused to respond. She bit back a whimper of pain.
But somehow Raven heard. He dropped his saddlebag next to hers. “I’ll be right there to help you,” he said as he untied the bundle of firewood and tossed it to the ground.
Maurynna watched sourly as he swung down, moving easily despite their candlemarks of riding. She considered boxing his ears out of sheer temper and jealousy; further reflection told her he’d likely refuse to help her down after that and she’d be stuck atop Boreal for the night.
That would hardly be fair to the stallion, so Maurynna gritted her teeth as Raven dragged her out of the saddle, her aching body complaining with every pull and tug.
The moment she had both feet on the ground, Boreal turned, planted his nose in the small of her back, and shoved gently. He repeated the action, a little harder, when she didn’t move.
“Boreal’s right, beanpole,” Raven said. “Go sit down before you fall down. I’ll take care of him.”
Maurynna opened her mouth to protest. But her shaking legs barely held her up as it was, and common sense told her she would indeed fall down if she tried to unsaddle the Llysanyin. She limped off to sit by the pool, pausing to salve her pride by snatching up the bundle of firewood. At least she could start the fire while the two men set up camp.
Her hands shook so much she nearly couldn’t work the flint and steel; she wished she could set the fire alight with a word as Linden had shown her, but she dared not use a Dragonlord’s magic. It seemed forever before the shower of sparks caught and the flames danced merrily against the night.
She sat by the fire, forehead on knees, sore of body and of heart. Of the two, the latter was the worst. Tears pricked her closed eyelids. The questions that tormented her every waking moment came back. What had happened to Linden and the others? Had they escaped Taren’s soldiers?
She was certain she would know—somehow—if something were truly wrong. But that didn’t make not knowing beyond a doubt any easier to bear.
Gods, Linden, I never knew I could miss someone as much as I miss you.
Her breath caught in her chest. Willing herself not to cry, she pressed her forehead against her knees until it hurt.
“Hungry?”
Maurynna looked up. Arrows rattling together in his quiver, Shima squatted beside her, a few leaf-wrapped bundles clasped one-handed to his chest. He offered her one.
She took it and turned it over in her hands to study it. It was long and narrow and heavy for its size. The fibrous leaves forming the covering were coarse, tied at the ends with strips of the same stuff. She picked open the bundle and found a small, sticky “loaf” of what looked like cooked grain of some sort. It looked a dull greyish-brown in the firelight and not very appetizing at all. She looked up at Shima.
“Pyamah cakes,” he explained. “It’s a staple of my people. A man can live a long time on pyamah. The grain’s mixed with water, and sometimes a little honey, left to ferment a bit, then wrapped in leaves from a plant called spice grass and boiled or baked in the ashes of a fire. The spice grass preserves the cakes and flavors them as well.” He broke off a bit and ate.
Maurynna gingerly followed suit. The stuff was dense and chewy, with a flavor like hazelnuts. On the back of her tongue she caught a hint of—cinnamon? —and another taste she didn’t quite recognize, but whatever it was, it was good. She’d thought she was too tired to eat, but the pyamah was tasty; she was suddenly ravenous. Besides, however it tasted, it would have been a welcome change from the millet she and Raven had been subsisting on. She ate eagerly.
Raven joined them by the fire and Shima handed him one of the cakes. Raven regarded it dubiously, then shrugged, unwrapped it and bit into it.
While they ate, Maurynna studied Shima by the firelight. He was shorter than either of them, though taller than most Jehangli she’d seen. The firelight picked out reddish glints in his black hair. Every other Jehangli she’d seen had bluish highlights in their hair.
His Yerrin blood, no doubt, Maurynna thought. That might also account for that high-arched nose like a sea eagle’s beak; I’ll wager anything his mother was from the north of Yerrih. But the dark honey of his skin and the doelike dark eyes could only be from his Tah’nehsieh father.
She finished her cake, listening as Raven and Shima talked, too tired to contribute. Like a wayward boat that wouldn’t answer to the helm, her mind continuously drifted back to thoughts of Linden no matter how hard she tried not to think about him. She rested her head once more on her bent knees. She would not cry; she and Linden weren’t the only soultwins who had ever been separated, after all. Besides, she’d feel a fool crying in front of a stranger.
“Is something amiss, lady?”
Shima’s gentle voice was nearly enough to break her resolve. She swallowed hard before answering, “I miss my soultwin, Linden. I don’t even know what’s happened—”
She broke off, listening. Had she really heard—Yes; there it was again. A strange shuffling noise, growing closer with each passing moment.
“Raven, get your dirk out,” she said tensely. “Someone’s coming.” Her weariness evaporating at the hint of danger, she jumped up and drew her own dirk with a speed that brought a gasp from the Tah’nehsieh.
Shima leaped to his feet, bow in hand.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the entrance to the campsite, Maurynna and Raven with dirks out, Shima with arrow nocked and drawn.
Now Maurynna could hear soft grunts and heavy breathing. Whatever it was, it was large; an animal of some sort? She braced herself.
*Shima, did thee have to choose this place? Thee knows these twists and turns are—oh, bother! I scraped another scale!*
Hard on the heels of the plaintive mindvoice came Miune’s head peering around the last turn in the passage, feelers waving in annoyance. The rest of him followed in a waddling shuffle. He huffed his way to stand before them, blinking in mild surprise at the weapons.
Weak with relief, Maurynna sheathed her dirk and laughed. While he didn’t relax, Raven lowered his own dirk; he stared and stared at Miune, who in his turn appeared to be fascinated with Raven’s red hair.
The dragon shuffled a hesitant step or two forward, and stretched out a feeler to play delicately with a lock of it. Raven stood, eyes wide in astonishment, still as stone.
Shima carefully relaxed the draw on his bow and returned the arrow to his quiver. He wiped his forehead. “Miune!” he said. “Have you any idea how close I came to shooting you? Next time—”
Miune turned a ruby eye on him. *Next time do not come here,* the waterdragon said mildly. *I cannot talk while I’m trying so hard not to scrape my scales.* He looked mour
nfully at his sides. The bulge Maurynna noticed before had lessened, but was still apparent.
“You shouldn’t have eaten so much that day,” Shima said cryptically.
Maurynna wondered what he meant, but it seemed ill-mannered to ask.
A feeler waved the admonition away. Then Miune turned his attention back to Raven. *Thee are Raven, are thee not? Thee are not a, um … * The feeler twisted its way into the youngling dragon’s mouth.
“No,” Raven snapped, his bemusement gone. “I’m not a demon. I just have red hair.”
“Of course he’s not a demon,” Shima said in exasperation. “Zhantse wouldn’t send me after a demon.”
Miune did not look convinced.
Shima threw his hands in the air and turned back to the fire. “We were eating. Come join us, stubborn one.”
Maurynna and Raven joined him; Miune waddled along behind.
*Pyamah cakes?* the young dragon asked.
“With honey,” Shima replied. “Just the way you like them. My mother made them.”
*Then I forgive thee for my scraped scales.*
Maurynna covered a smile at the magnanimity suffusing the little dragon’s mindvoice; it barely hid the hungry anticipation. Shima merely snorted.
As the two settled down she watched and marveled at the easy friendship between them. Save in a bard’s tale, she’d never heard of such a thing between truehuman and dragon. For without a word passed between them, Miune curled himself into a half circle and Shima sat in the curve of the eel-like body, resting his back against the dragon’s scaled side as if against a chair. A feeler wrapped around the man’s shoulders the way one truehuman might drape an arm over another. Shima unwrapped a pyamah cake and placed it in Miune’s waiting mouth. The dragon chewed greedily.
The meal was long over. Maurynna lay with her head pillowed on her saddlebag, tired yet unable to sleep. She gazed into the fire, letting thoughts drift through her mind like wisps of smoke in the wind, chasing one from time to time. The others talked quietly; the waterdragon’s words were a mere whisper in her head.
A drifting thought jumped out at her. “Miune,” she said into a lull in the conversation, “when I first met you, you were hiding in a good-sized river. But Raven and I came across nothing like that today. Did you walk overland all this way?”
*No,* he said with a delicate shudder. *That would hurt my feet too much. Thee do not remember the stream—little but deep—that thee crossed before thee came to the wash?*
Maurynna pushed up onto one elbow, intrigued. “Yes, but you’re much too big to hide in something that small.” She waved a hand to take in the youngling dragon’s length.
*But hide there I did. I saw from thy mind how big thy soultwin is, Maurynna, and I remember what my parents told me of the northern dragons they met. By rights the northern dragons and thy kind should not be able to fly; thee are all too big. But it is part of thy magic to be able to,* Miune said. *Likewise, it is the magic of my kind that we can change size to fit the water we wander in if needed.*
“Do you mean that you could shrink to fit in a tiny puddle?” Maurynna said. The thought fascinated her.
*No; there are limits, just as there are limits to how high thy kind can fly. Even fresh from the egg I could not hide in a puddle. Now I find that there are streams whose water I could hide in when I was younger that I cannot hide in now. When I am at my full growth, I will need at the least a very large stream—nay, a small river—or a lake to conceal myself fully. The old ones, the most powerful among my kind, passed beyond that need. They could travel as a cloud travels.*
Now Maurynna sat upright. “What do you mean?”
*Just as I said. They could turn themselves into mist and ride the wind as clouds do.*
Turn themselves into mist … Surely that couldn’t be possible. Then Maurynna bethought herself of the times she’d seen her fellow Dragonlords Change. First they dissolved into a sparkling red mist that spread until it took the form of a dragon. Then, in the blink of an eye, the dragon solidified.
If a Dragonlord could do it, why not a truedragon? And halt the process at midpoint? Not the kind of truedragon she knew, certainly; but the Jehangli waterdragons were clearly a different breed altogether. Why shouldn’t their magic be different as well?
“Gods help us,” she breathed. “It could be done.”
Shima said, “They were called Djahn N’Tsina—Lords of the Rain. It’s said that in times of drought, they sometimes took pity on humankind and brought gentle rains to water the fields and fill the wells and rivers. But now—” He held up a hand, then let it fall as if casting something away. “But now, of course, they’re all dead save Miune, and this is the third year of a drought in many parts of Jehanglan. The Phoenix has not seen fit to send his people—or the rest of us—enough rain for the fields.”
Miune shook his head vigorously. *The Rain Lords are not all dead! I have told thee this thing already. Oolan Jeel sleeps at the bottom of his lake!*
“And you once admitted to me that even your parents had only heard stories of Oolan Jeel,” Shima said, gently. “I’m sorry, my friend, but he may be only a legend of your kind.”
The waterdragon fixed his gaze on Maurynna. His eyes burned as if he must make her believe him. *Oolan Jeel is not a legend. And there are others of my kind who have hidden themselves away to dream in deep lakes until the time of the Phoenix is ended.*
A torrent of longing ran through the words. Maurynna swallowed against sudden tears; the waterdragon’s pain cut like a knife through her soul. The broad-snouted head came around to lean against Shima’s upraised knee and rested there, feelers quivering. The man laid a hand above the thick eye ridges and stroked gently.
Maurynna remembered what Shima had said earlier. She hoped with all her heart that the youngling dragon was right. It hurt to think he might be the last of his kind. I’m sorry, she said to him and stretched out a hand; a feeler wrapped lightning-swift around it, squeezed, and was gone again.
*Thee are lonely, too.* “Yes, I miss my soultwin. I’ve no idea where he is or how he and our friends, fare.”
*Then I shall look for thy soultwin and friends, Maurynna. If they are near a stream or river, I should be able to find them for thee, I hope. * “Thank you,” was all Maurynna could say without crying.
“That would be well done,” Shima said. He wrapped his arms around the young dragon’s neck and hugged him fierce and hard, then sat upright once more. “Now let us tell stories, talk as friends with no cares in the world, before we sleep. For tomorrow we must return to my mehanso.”
He fed another stick into the fire. It blazed up, illuminating his face in its ruddy light. “Listen now, and I shall tell you one of the stories of my people,” he said, and began his tale.
Maurynna sat and listened and lost herself in the tapestry of Shima’s words as he wove them amid the dancing flames.
She wasn’t certain what woke her. One of the others murmuring in the midst of a dream? The cry of a night bird, if such lived in this desert? Maurynna rubbed her eyes, propped herself up on one elbow, and looked around, wondering if the sound would be repeated.
The fire was now a small bed of of coals glowing dark red. By its dim light, her sharp eyes could make out the sleeping shapes around her. Raven and Shima on the other side of the fire, looking like well-wrapped logs within their blankets, Shima with his head pillowed on Miune’s tail. The waterdragon sprawled on his side, scales gleaming dully in the faint light.
Could Miune have been right? As always, the thought ached in her soul. If only—
A movement by the entrance caught Maurynna’s eye. Even as a cry of warning sprang to her lips, it died; Boreal, she thought, was allowed to swish his tail as he stood guard. Stormwind lay on the ground nearby.
As she watched, Boreal approached his herdmate and touched noses. Stormwind’s head came up; he nodded once. Then the black Llysanyin scrambled to his feet, shaking his head and neck as if to banish the last dregs of sle
ep, sending his long grey mane flying. Boreal lay down as Stormwind ambled off to stand near the entrance to their holt.
As Maurynna looked back at the figures on the other side of the fire once again, the young dragon grunted and snuffled, and she recognized the sound that had woken her. She smiled once more as the tip of one feeler came up and quivered like a reed.
What a funny little creature he is, she thought as her gaze ran down the length of him, admiring the color of his scales. Hardly like a dragon at all. I wonder if it’s because he’s spent all his life with humans? As her eyes came to his slightly bulging middle, she remembered how greedily he’d gobbled the pyamah cakes earlier. Just like a chi—
The realization hit Maurynna with the force of a ship striking a reef. Her breath caught in her throat.
It had been Miune in the river that day. Miune, the funny little dragonchild who made her laugh; who had reassured Kyrissaean, and given them both peace at last. The memory of the roiling, bloodstained waters, the dying screams of terrified men and horses made her stomach turn.
Part of her mind wondered, How many horses did he—She squashed the thought.
She sat up, shivering, but not from the cold night air. Taking slow, deep breaths, Maurynna pushed back her horror.
He fights in a war begun long ago and not by his kind.
Wherever it came from, the thought reassured her. Miune Kihn had killed not for bloodlust, but because he’d had to. There had been no joy in the killing; of that she was certain. He had done it to protect her and Raven. And protect them he had, else they would be dead now—if they were lucky. The thought of how close they’d come to being Taren’s prisoners made her shudder.
Suddenly, with such an ally, the mission before her seemed not quite so impossible. It was not a rational belief, she knew that; the little waterdragon would not be there to help her in the end. But it comforted her nonetheless. Maurynna bowed her head for a moment and breathed a quiet prayer that all would be well, then lay down again, wondering what the next day would bring.
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