She had not got far when more movement caused my eyes to skip back the way she had come. A second figure was shoving its way through the crowd in pursuit of her. The woman was fast for all she was stout, and the dusky skin of her cheeks was flushed brightly with exertion. Her steel gray hair, pulled back to a bun at the crown of her head, looked disheveled even from this distance, and her hooded eyes burning with a harangued look I had seen often enough back in Nophgrin on the faces of harried parents. That little girl was in trouble.
Luke had realized my attention had wandered and was now watching the pair as well. As they cleared the thicker part of the crowd, I could see that the older woman was also towing along an even younger child by one hand. She shared the same apple face of the girl hurrying ahead and the woman pulling her along; her black hair was pulled in a slightly neater bun at the base of her neck. Tottering on tiptoes in order to keep up, she made a funny picture, but she didn’t look as though she minded. Her eyes were locked on the girl who I hazarded might have been her sister.
By the time the first little girl had reached our table, the woman had almost closed the gap between them. I was able to see they shared many similarities in their features, so I guessed they were related. That was good. I had heard tales of pickpockets roping bystanders in on their thefts and relying on the good will of naïve strangers to get them out of trouble they had rightly earned. That was not a situation that I felt prepared to figure out. Still, given the older woman’s hair, the deep wrinkles on her face and the sunspots on her hands, I thought probably she was not the mother of the two girls. Both children were under ten, and they stared at me with eyes like saucers.
“Why do you look like that? Why is your skin look like that?” The elder of the two girls asked me in broken Common.
“Cahaya, if I’ve told you once—” It was then that the older woman, panting, got close enough that she could grip her second young charge by the shoulder. She did so, a little roughly, pulling the girl back out of my personal space. “I’ve told you one hundred times. You don’t run from me!”
Cahaya seemed to take her recapture in stride and turned the same question that she had asked me onto her captor. “Bibi, why does she look like this? You see?” She waved her hands, wiggling her fingers in a gesture I didn’t understand. She had spoken this time as though she had intended to whisper, but she clearly didn’t have good practice at it. My cheeks heated up as a few others in the pavilion chuckled.
“Hush, Cahaya,” Bibi admonished, thrusting the child behind her own bulk. She gave me an apologetic look. “My name is Betari. I am sorry for my niece. She knows better than to wander off and bother strangers.”
“I asked you, but you said you were too busy!” Cahaya squalled from behind her, clearly indignant, though I couldn’t see the expression on her face.
“No, I told you we did not have the time.”
“That’s all right,” I said, maneuvering so I could better see both girls around Betari’s multi-patterned linen skirts. “My name is Taryn, and I’m from the north,” I told her, trying my best to explain what I thought her question was about—my skin, which was pale in comparison to most people she probably saw. Of course, it was only a guess. My experience with children was limited. I had helped Nai with babysitting a few times, but she had always taken the lead. Living on the outskirts of town as we did, I wasn’t exactly anyone’s first choice for a babysitter.
The little girl stared at me, her dark brown eyes serious. Her mouth drew into a pensive line. “But why?” she asked, more forcefully this time. When I didn’t answer right away, her eyebrows began to draw together. As I watched, her lower lip started jutting out. It didn’t take an expert to see she was winding herself up for a tantrum. “Why?”
“Uhm,” I glanced at Aella, who looked like she wanted to laugh. “Why what?”
Cahaya’s next question, or questions came in a rapid string of sounds and more gestures. I could only tell she was asking me something by the inflection she used and the way she continued to stare at me when she had finished. Her face held an impressive mixture of impatience and condescension for one so small. I stared at her, up at her aunt, and then back at her, flummoxed.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t…”
“It is well,” Betari told me, before Cahaya could start again. Her tone was dry, and she rolled her eyes for good measure. “Her Common is not the best. Her mother, my sister, does not think she needs it. Perhaps she is right. She asks enough questions in Oshkanese as it is,” she said pointedly, and then she said something else in that same tongue to stem the tide of new questions coming from Cahaya, who drew silent, looking sullen.
“But she has to have seen northerners before, right?” Luke asked. “We’re not exactly coming out your ears here, but I can see ten others on this street alone.”
Looking tired, Betari said, “Yes. She sees people like you every day. It is just that today she saw your friend and made up some story for herself. Then she decided she had questions about it, and she wanted—it was Taryn?” I nodded, and she continued blandly, “She then wanted Taryn to answer those questions about the story she made up in her head. It is the way of children, you know.”
I didn’t know, but I nodded and murmured, “Mhmm.”
Her gaze sharpened as she took us in for the first time. “You are from the north, you said? You are mercenary?”
“We are,” Aella affirmed around a bite of flat-bread and hummus.
“Are you here for the drakes in east district?”
“Is that where you live?” Aella answered her question with one of her own.
Betari nodded, the bun on top of her head swaying with the motion. She didn’t need any more encouragement to share what she knew. “Those creatures—I hear talk from those that peddle their goods below, in the sewers—they say they’re already destroying the glazing of the tunnels. If it gets bad enough, the waste will leak into the wells. That will cause sickness.”
The idea of peddlers selling their wares in the sewers put me off my next bite of stuffed grape leaves. Why would anyone do that? Who would even want to go into the sewers to buy things? I didn’t have a chance to ask though. Betari had begun to complain about the guards not going down to clean the sewers out sooner, and I didn’t want to miss anything.
“So, they bite?” She snorted. “What is one bite to a million sores we will all get if they remain?” From how she spoke, sickness scared the people more than the idea of being eaten.
“Why don’t some of the local men go down and find them then? If the guards are taking too long?” It was what we did back home—with normal standard gryphons, anyway. I regretted the question almost as soon as I asked it. The look of scorn she gave me made me feel like I was an inch tall.
“Who is going to risk their neck to try and put a stop to the monsters? Weapons, and proper armor are expensive, and without them… you might as well coat yourself in garlic and lie down on the ground.”
“It’s different than gryphon hunting,” Aella explained, clearly understanding where my mind was at. “For one, their hides are tougher, and for two, there are almost always several in a tight spot. They might not work together, but you still have to fight all of them.”
“The cramped quarters and the acid takes them to a totally different arena from gryphons, even fighting one on one,” Luke added.
I bit my tongue and nodded rather than arguing the point further. It was the same case he had made in Forklahke, which I had been reluctant to accept. This woman had more experience with drakes than I did; was I really going to be defensive of whose monsters were worse, mine or theirs? That was silly.
“So why don’t you complain to the guards? It’s their job to deal with them, right?”
With twice as much derision, Betari said, “Hardly. Those dung rollers won’t lift a finger. Not without direct orders, and those orders must come from the earl or one of his underlings. I don’t hold my breath. Somehow, the nobility never finds matters as u
rgent as those of us who live directly atop the nests.”
Aella and Luke had nothing to say to that, but I still didn’t understand. “It’s their duty though.”
“Their duty is to keep order. If we keep after them, they call us lazy and say if we really wanted the problem fixed then we would get our own training and fix the sewers and fight the drakes ourselves.” She spat on the sandstone at her feet to show what she thought of that.
I scowled. I had always been taught that protecting us was the duty of nobility and the guard. Because they had more wealth and training at their disposal, they were honor-bound to protect and serve those who had less—the people who kept the world running around them.
The people of Dabsqin needed protection from drakes and from sickness. Even if the nobles were lazy, the guards often came from common people. They ought to have known better.
Back in Nophgrin, our guard Willy had always sympathized with us when Baron Petyr proved unhelpful. He did his best to subvert the rulings that harmed us. Was that because we had been so isolated from the anger the Baron Petyr might have displayed from being disobeyed?
Seeing my expression, Betari shrugged. “It’s the way of things. They tell us to be patient because they have their own to protect, and they do not wish to displease those who pay them. Eventually mercenaries come through and deal with the problem, and we must be satisfied with that. We have no other choice.”
With the reminder from my friends of how different fighting drakes was from fighting gryphons, I couldn’t blame the common people for not taking the matter into their own hands. From the illustrations and descriptions that I had been shown, drakes were downright chilling. If left to their own devices, they would continue to grow, longer than any other animal on record. The largest drake I had ever heard of had grown to an incredible length of just over twenty-five feet before being slain by the king’s men.
“Do you know if it’s adults or babes?” Luke inserted the question smoothly as the younger child tugged on Betari’s skirt, and she paused her tirade to hand the canteen hanging from her belt to her niece.
“My sister’s husband is friends with a guard, and she says to me they are babies, none longer than three feet. Makes sense to me. If it’s the brood I’m thinking it is, the parents were slain not long before the last full moon. It took us five months of petitioning to get them down there. S’pose it would have been too hard for them to finish the job.” She spat again; the spot she had spat on before was already dry, as though the air and rock had desperately pulled the moisture in as fast as they could.
Aella made a sympathetic noise. “The young probably scattered while the guards dealt with their parents. It can be hard to keep track when they all start spitting.”
Betari took the canteen back from the younger girl, straightening her back with a groan this time. “I’m sure that’s what you’ll say when you miss one this time around and have to come back next year.” Turning from us abruptly she began to drag the children back the way they had come from. “Come girls. Your appointment is soon, and your mother will take my head and all that is attached to it if we make the lady wait.”
With eyebrows raised in disbelief at the turn in the conversation, I watched her hobble off. Both children were now gripped firmly by the fabric on their shoulders.
“Does she really think you all—we all—will leave creatures alive to ensure a future job?” Seeing Luke grin, I grew even more incredulous. “We don’t, right?” The idea that we might be another set that took advantage of these vulnerable people made me uncomfortable.
Aella’s head fell backward in a laugh that came from her belly. “No! Not at all! It is hard to keep track of the cursed things when the fight starts. It’s not as though they’re inclined to work together in a fight, you know? They’ll hunt together, but a real threat comes along? Sometimes one or two decide they’re going to stick around to defend their family. Not often though. Half the scrabble is trying to block them from bolt holes. Locals who have never had to fight them just don’t understand, and they’re cynical. Not that I can blame them. You get used to it.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking. One of the first things I had learned about Aella when I had met her was that she had an innate distrust for “locals.” It was making a little more sense now. “It just seems a little dafty,” I muttered, more to myself.
“Forget her,” Aella said reassuringly. “She told us what we wanted to know, and she only spat on the ground, not on any of us.”
“I’d chalk that up to a good interaction with a local,” Luke joked. At least, I hoped it was a joke.
“Anyway.” Aella faked a glare at him. “When it comes to the drakes, it’s their numbers that will be the biggest problem in this case. A drake clutch has, on average, how many eggs hatch?”
“Nine to twelve babies,” I replied promptly, then added with a grin, “about eight to eleven too many.”
“True enough. Not that one or two would be a breeze either.”
I nodded. All babies hatched fully capable of anything an adult could do. That meant they could climb walls, spit acid, and swim. It was no wonder that drake parents chose to breed in sewers. It was the perfect environment in which to hide and grow their children.
Aella scratched the tip of her nose. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get them all in one go. If we’re less lucky, a few will get away. If they do that, they’ll go to ground and hide for a few days, which can be annoying.”
“But it means we get to stay in Dabsqin longer, which I never mind,” Luke said, shrugging. “After this it’ll be one sand shanty town after another. Trust me, a few months out there, and you’ll be dreaming fondly of Dabsqin, drakes and all.”
We finished our food not long after Betari left, but we idled there for longer, enjoying being out on our own and not sitting in a tent or on a horse. Luke and Aella also took the time to explain to me the layout of the city and where else we might visit on another day.
The sun was already beginning to make its descent before we realized it, and we had to make our way hastily back to the north entrance to the market. We had stayed out longer than Aedith had asked, and we were all curious to see what had been officially disclosed about our job.
As we left the market, the same guard from earlier made sure to check us again. He looked closely at Lucas’s slip of sale, glancing between it and the jar marked with matching characters, as if to ascertain it was legitimate. At last, as I began to feel nervous that we were about to be accused of thievery, he let us go.
“What is that about?” I asked, once we were out of earshot.
Aella looked unbothered. She walked with her arms linked behind her head. To my amusement I realized that while I was near constantly getting jostled, her familiar stance caused people to give her a wide berth, rather than risk getting hit in the head by her elbows.
“We’re young. You and Luke are clearly not from around here. Big cities like this, just off The Great Road, they deal with a lot of thievery, gangs, and that sort of thing. We probably ticked off some internal checklist for him.”
I tugged absently on my braid, which draped forward heavily over one shoulder. No one from back at home would have ever even considered such a thing of me. But then I rolled my shoulders, internally reminding myself I wasn’t home any more. A city of strangers had no more reason to trust me than I did them.
Back at the inn, there were two entrances to the floor where our rooms were. One was within the building, and the other was up a small wooden staircase built on the outside of the main building. We’d been given two keys, and one opened both of those doors. The second was to our individual rooms where our things had already been stored earlier by the staff. We bypassed those, beelining for the room Aedith would be staying in. Already the rest of the company spilled out through her open door, craning their necks to be able to see her.
Belinda noted our arrival. “The youngsters are here, Boss! That makes everyone, once Ito gets back from checking the dini
ng hall.” A couple of people tossed us disgruntled looks. Apparently, we had held them up.
“Wonderful.” I couldn’t see Aedith, but her voice was dry. “I’ll wait. It’s so cool and breezy in here that it will be my pleasure.”
That got a few chuckles. The stone building seemed to insulate from the worst of the desert heat, but breezy it most certainly was not. The air was stale with the sour tang of sweat seeping from everyone who had yet to make a trip to the bathhouse nor change from their travel clothes. I self-consciously lumped myself in with that group.
Ito was not long. When the group chorused his arrival, Aedith began to speak, her rough voice carrying over all our heads with no problem. “We’re here for drakes. I know. I was shocked too.” A few people chuckled at her joke as she continued briskly. “Nine of them in the east district sewers; hatched in what Manuel thinks was Ice Moon. That means they’re a little over three months old. They’ll have begun to spread out—find their own territories.”
Kaleb took over as Aedith took a sip from the cup that had been sitting on the end table next to her. “They’ll be small yet, but you know that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.”
He was met with murmurs of agreement, and I listened intently to their reactions. Everyone but me had at least four turns of monster hunting under their belts. I had done my reading back at Forklahke, but these people had fought almost every mythical beast that walked the continent. Hearing a distinct lack of worry in the tone of their voices made me feel more at ease.
“We’ll be heading out after dawn in the morning, provided everyone is feeling they will be rested enough?” Immediately this question was met with affirmatives. Though I wouldn’t have minded a night to settle in, I joined them.
Aedith set her cup back down with tunk. “We’re to have an escort to the proper district, to ensure we are in the right spot, but it’ll be just us once we go underground.”
Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps Page 16
