by Robin Hobb
I share your agony over Selden’s fate. Would that we had even one scrap of certainty of what has befallen him. We have sent a response to Wintrow, telling him we still await news.
All else here is the best that it can be, given the daily worries that we share for Selden.
I pray you, if you receive good tidings about our boy, send them as swiftly as possible, by bird. That would be a message I would wish to share with the world.
May Sa shelter us all!
Jani
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dragon Warrior
The endless pursuit dragged on and on and on. Hest was sickened by it. It was not that he felt any sympathy for the creature they hunted. It was the utter boredom spiked with sudden uncontrollable danger that roiled his belly.
The Chalcedean and his fellows were determined to take the dragon, to harvest blood, scale, eyes, flesh, tongue, liver and spleen. And whatever other bits of her they salivated over each night as he waited on them at the galley table. Tonight, the Chalcedean and his cohorts were full of wild optimism. They slammed their mugs on the table for emphasis and praised their own cleverness and courage in persevering so long. The dragon was theirs, and with her death, fame and glory would come to them. They would kill her, plunder her body and go home to fame and riches and, sweetest of all, safety for themselves and their families. The Duke would cease his threats and shower them with gifts and favours. Cherished sons long held hostage in horrific conditions would be restored to them.
So they spoke by night when darkness forced them to cease their drudging hunt and tie up for the night. By dawn, they would once more stalk the dragon. The damned beast refused to die. She trudged away from them, day after day and possibly long into the night. Each day, the impervious ships battled the current until they caught up with her. Twice she had lain in wait for them and sprung out in a wild attempt to capsize their vessels. She had splintered oars, and eaten two rowers who had fallen or been flung overboard by her attacks. She seemed to take great pleasure in crushing them slowly in her jaws as they shrieked in agony.
It had not discouraged the Chalcedean. Lord Dargen was relentless.
Captives had been taken from below decks to replace the rowers who had been lost, chained to oars as if they were slaves. The merchants and Traders were poor replacements for the work-hardened slaves and sailors that had perished. Yet the Chalcedean and his followers seemed not to care that nineteen of twenty arrows shot at the dragon either missed or splashed uselessly into the river. If the twentieth one loosened a scale or stuck for even a moment in a tender part of her body, they roared and screeched victoriously.
Hest did not see why they put so much effort into it. It seemed plain to him that the dragon was dying. Daily she looked more dilapidated. She was obviously incapable of flight. She carried one of her wings partially open at an odd angle. Her colours were faded and the smell of her was terrible, a stench of rotten meat. Rousted from wherever she had finally taken rest at night, she now put most of her energy into staying out of range of their arrows. Sometimes she sought refuge in the reed-beds at the swampy edge of the river. Lying down, she became almost invisible to them. Then Lord Dargen would force some of his men over the side to harry and taunt her into showing herself. Some of those men became food. Privately, Hest believed that if the Chalcedean would stop feeding his henchmen to the dragon, she would sooner succumb to her injuries and die.
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But he did not say so. He did not wish to end up on the end of an oar. Yet he feared that, at the rate Lord Dargen was spending men, it would be inevitable. The Chalcedean seldom gave him an order any more. Hest kept himself busy and out of the man’s sight, making every effort to be both useful and invisible. For hours every day, he carried out menial tasks, wiping tables, stirring porridge or soup, and any other work he could find to occupy himself. He had, he thought bitterly, adapted himself into the ideal slave, endlessly labouring without need of direction.
The only thing worse than the constant drudgery were the times of absolute terror when the dragon attacked the ship. Those could happen at any moment, he had discovered. Pestered and poked enough, she would turn and lash out. Her roars lacked spirit, more the response of a cornered rat than an enraged predator. Yet even so, every attack damaged one ship or another and often enough, claimed a life.
‘Hest!’
He jerked at the sound of his shouted name, and the men gathered at the table roared with laughter. The Chalcedean did not. He was scowling, displeased with his servant. Hest tried not to cower. He had several reasons to fear. He had stolen two pieces of bacon that morning on the pretence of cleaning the pan. And he had purloined a water-stained cloak that one of the Chalcedeans had thrown to the deck after the dragon had given them an unexpected drenching. It served as his bedding now and he was pathetically grateful for its thin comfort. But now, as dread rose in him, he cursed himself for a fool. He had not been that cold nor were the deck planks that hard. That discomfort was not worth his life!
The Chalcedean’s cheeks and nose were red with drinking, or perhaps just from recent splashes of river water. They all looked the worse for wear by now and Hest dared not imagine how he appeared. His hands and arms were scalded red to the elbows just from his cleaning tasks. But his master only took a heavy brass key from the pouch at his belt and said, ‘Go to the second aft hatch and bring us back that little keg of Sandsedge brandy. ’ He looked around the table at his men, swaying slightly. ‘I don’t think it’s too early for us to celebrate. Tomorrow she will surely fall to us. That spear from Binton went deep today, did it not? Did you see how her blood bubbled as it met the water? Dragon blood! Soon enough we’ll have plenty of it. So emptying the keg to hold it tonight might be a wise course of action!’
Two men cheered, but the others at the table shook their heads. Hest’s heart sank as one of them snatched the key back from him and stuffed it back into his master’s pouch. Anger blossomed on the Chalcedean’s face and Hest knew he would bear the brunt of it. ‘Your master is drunk. Only a fool celebrates a victory before it is in his hands. Take him back to his bed for the night. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will have to bring us that cask. ’
Lord Dargen rose unsteadily. His hand hovered over one of his vicious little knives. ‘You are not in command here, Clard. It is something for you to remember. ’
The man did not lower his gaze. ‘I know it well, Lord Dargen. You lead us, and you have borne the hardship of doing so. But I follow you, and not the wine in your belly!’ He grinned as he added this, and after a moment, the fury melted from the Chalcedean’s face. He nodded slowly and relieved smiles broke on the faces of the other men at the table.
Lord Dargen turned to Hest. ‘I am going to bed. Take a candle and precede me, Bingtown Trader. When we go back to Chalced, perhaps I will make you my valet. I have never had a valet, but you appear well suited to the task. As long as you keep your hands to yourself. ’
The men at the table roared with laughter. Fury burned in his heart but Hest bent his mouth in an approximation of an appreciative smile. Dismay that such a fate could await him warred with hatred for the man. Would it be much worse to be eaten by the dragon or drowned in the river? As he sheltered their candle from the wind on the way back to the deckhouse and his stateroom, he wished he had the courage to push the drunk overboard, even as his wiser self reminded him of how his companions would react to the loss of their leader.
Death was not far away. They knew it, the carrion eaters and blood drinkers, and they swarmed around her. Some did not wait, but darted forward to try for a chunk of her flesh or the opportunity to latch onto one of her wounds. She longed to shake them off, to dart her head down and make her predators her own meal, but she did not. Let them come. Tintaglia moved in silence, ignoring the swarms of small vampire worms and the fish that kept trying to take a bite of her. They might feed on her tonight; they would almost certainly feast on her tomorrow. But no human wo
uld draw her blood or slice her scales free; no human would lay her belly open and take her heart with bloody hands. No. If she could not escape them, she would at least ensure that they joined her in death.
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She had taken some rest earlier in the day, if it could be called that. As evening fell, she had found a gap in the forest wall and crept back among the trees. She could not go far, but she had stiffly wound her aching body among the trunks and tree roots and, for a short time, closed her eyes.
And dreamed.
That had surprised her. Of late, when she found a place and a moment to sleep, exhaustion dragged her under into a dark cavern that could scarcely be called rest. More like a bite of death, she thought to herself. But that brief rest had brought her a gobbet of an idea. Some ancient ancestral memory had uncoiled in her mind and when she awoke, it awaited her. Ships had a vulnerable point. Every ship needed a rudder, be it a sweep or a steering oar. Destroy those, and neither vessel could manoeuvre well.
She had been stupid to flee them, to let them attack and chase her. The only times she had gained any blood from them were when she had lain in wait. But they had learned to anticipate those ambushes. She had attacked them when they were awake and alert, their arms ready to hand, and the light helping them to see. Now as she paced slowly and silently through the water back toward the ships, she hissed in silent satisfaction. The lights of the anchored vessels beckoned her, spilling a pale betrayal of their silhouettes onto the river’s face. But she would be almost invisible to them, a black shape in the black water.
She did not deceive herself. This was her last bid at survival. If she did not destroy or at least disable her foes tonight, she did not think she could live through another day of their harrying. The infection from her original wound seemed to have spread to all the minor injuries they had dealt her since then. She was not healing; daily her injuries worsened and she weakened. If she could only rest, make a kill, eat and rest, then perhaps she could muster the strength to plod on toward Kelsingra. Flight was beyond her now. She could scarcely move one wing, and the thought of springing into the air, snapping it open and beating her way up into the sky seemed no more than a long-ago dream.
They had moored their boats with their noses upstream. She would have to pass them as silently as possible, then turn and attack. She hoped to disable both ships and then flee before they could retaliate. It was not a dragon’s way of fighting, to strike and then run, but she was not living in ordinary times for dragons. She carried within her eggs that would mature and eventually be ready for laying. She had caught the scent of dragons on the one damaged vessel; there was a faint chance that there was a colony of viable dragons at Kelsingra. But it was hard to believe and until she knew, she felt that the fate of her race rested on her. If these stupid men so bent on killing her succeeded, they might well have eradicated dragons for ever.
The thought steeled her resolve. She would disable their ships and escape. And when she was healed, she would return to destroy not just them but the evil nest that had bred them. She had heard their speech and recognized words from her ancient memories. I know where you spawn, she thought at them. I and my offspring will fall upon your land and leave not one of your nests standing. We will feast on your kine and your children, and foul your drinking places with carrion. You will be the ones eradicated, and no memory of your ways will descend from you.
She was so close now that she could hear their muffled voices and stupid laughter. Laugh well, for a final time, she thought at them. Her path would take her between the two moored vessels, in water deep enough to conceal her and shallow enough that her claws would not lose their grip on the river bottom. She bent her legs slightly, crouching so that only her eyes and nostrils remained above the water, and began her stealthy approach.
Lord Dargen breathed out the fumes of Hest’s own wine as he staggered along beside him. He gripped Hest’s shoulder and leaned on him, cursing him when his stumbling feet jostled him against the railing. ‘Stop. Stop!’ he commanded Hest suddenly. ‘Need to piss. Stay and watch, Bingtown Trader, and see the weapon a Chalcedean bears. ’ He was, Hest thought, very drunk indeed.
He kept his grip on Hest’s shoulder as he staggered to the railing and Hest had perforce to move with him. He moved aside in distaste as the man made lewd comments about Hest’s supposed desire for him and Hest’s lack of endowment. The night was not peaceful. Animals called to one another in the nearby forest and ghostly gleams of luminescent hanging moss made mad ghosts in the trees. The yellow lamplight from the windows of the ship fled the vessel in long bars of light on the river’s face. A ripple in the water’s surface caught Hest’s eye. He stared, wondering what disturbed the slack current between the two vessels. A large gleaming eye glared up at him and then was lidded abruptly.
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‘The dragon!’ Hest shouted. ‘She is right alongside us! The dragon is in the river!’
‘Idiot!’ The Chalcedean cursed him. ‘What is frightening you? A river pig? A floating log?’ Lord Dargen staggered to Hest’s side and looked down. ‘There is nothing there! Just water and a coward’s imagining. ’ He seized Hest’s wrist and with shocking strength dragged him closer. ‘Look down, Bingtown coward! What do you see? Nothing but black water! I should throw you in so you can see for yourself!’ With his free hand, he seized the back of Hest’s neck and shoved him forward so that he leaned far out over the railing. Hest shouted wordlessly and struggled, but even drunk, the Chalcedean had a madman’s strength. Worse, as Hest stared, a gleaming blue eye looked up at him from the depths. The rest of the creature was invisible, cloaked in the black water, but he knew it was the dragon that looked up at him with hatred. And waited.
‘It’s there! Look for yourself, there! See the eye, look!’ His voice rose and cracked into a woman’s squeal.
The Chalcedean laughed, drunk and guttural. ‘Over you go, Bingtowner!’
The boat gave a sudden wild heave sideways. The shrieking of splintered wood competed with the harsh cries of the men in the galley and the terrified screams of the hostages trapped below decks. Hest clutched at the railing and a wordless scream escaped him. The Chalcedean staggered free of him shouting, ‘Arms! The dragon attacks us. Kill her, kill her now!’
As the boat tipped again, the Chalcedean lord was flung against the railing. For a long moment he clung there, and Hest dared to hope to see him tip over the edge. But the next onslaught from the dragon flung the ship in the other direction, and he slammed against the ship’s house. ‘Attack!’ he roared, fury and fear diminishing his drunkenness.
The door of the galley was flung open and men poured out onto the deck, weapons in their hands.
‘I wish the city would light itself here,’ Rapskal complained.
Privately, Thymara agreed with his sentiment even as she recognized the impossibility. Even this magical city had limits. Only certain bands of metal woke to light, and not all of them still worked. How they worked at all was still a great mystery, but she now recognized Elderling magical works when she saw them. And in this part of the city, they seemed to have chosen to use it as little as possible. Almost, she remembered why. She turned away from the memory tug. The statues in the nearby squares were only statues, silent and unmoving. They were of lovingly worked stone, but no shining silver threads of memory gleamed in them.
The keepers had gathered at the well plaza to bend their backs to clearing the debris. Alise was there and, for the first time in weeks, she carried her case of paper and pencils. She seemed to take immense satisfaction in the new supplies that Leftrin had brought her. She clambered through the stack of broken timbers and sketched a copy of the lettering on one. The timbers had been amazingly well preserved, and Thymara had heard her speculate to Leftrin that the thick glossy paint that coated them had something to do with it. Leftrin had grudgingly agreed even as he muttered his disappointment that his work crew
was here instead of applying their efforts to reinforcing Tarman’s dock.
Thymara stretched her aching back and tried to see the plaza as Alise did. It was not easy to mentally piece it together. A graceful and lavishly decorated roof of carved wood supported on stout wooden pillars had sheltered the walled well at one time. The roof had been pyramidal, and painted green and gold and blue. It had given way to time and possibly violence. Carson had pointed out that some of the timbers were torn while others had rotted. Mixed in with the timbers were chains and pulleys, the remnants of a windlass that had once cranked up a large bucket from the depths. Carson had directed the keepers to pull the metal parts to the side and to preserve every piece they found. ‘We may be able to reassemble at least part of it,’ he said.
Leftrin had looked at the heaped sections of broken chain and whistled low. ‘Can the well have been that deep?’
And to that question Mercor had replied, ‘The level of Silver receded over time. It was, indeed, that deep. ’
The dragons had all gathered to watch them in a hopeful shifting circle. They came and went as hunger drove them away to hunt, gorge and sleep, but they always returned to the plaza as evening was shifting into night rather than seeking the baths or the sand wallows. Thymara privately reflected that this was the most time any of the dragons had spent with their Elderlings in weeks.
The palpable anticipation of the dragons had infected all of the keepers. Every one of them, as well as Leftrin’s entire crew, had put aside all other work to labour at clearing the site. Leftrin had insisted that a skeleton crew must remain aboard his beloved liveship, but the crewmen had alternated duties so that each one had spent some time at the well plaza. Big Eider’s incredible strength had been indispensible to moving the larger pieces of timber, while Hennesey and Skelly had sorted usable lengths of chain from short sections. Thymara had marked well how Hennesey grinned as he worked, jesting and good-natured as she had never seen him before. Perhaps it had something to do with how Tillamon, well attired in Elderling dress now, was always the one to bring him water and to stand beside him asking earnest questions as he affably explained all to her. Tillamon was not pretty; her scaling and the wattles along her jaw reminded Thymara more of an armoured toad from the Rain Forest rather than a graceful Elderling. But then, Hennesey with his scars and work-roughened hands was not a gem of masculine beauty. And neither of them seemed to care much what anyone else thought of them so long as they were pleased with one another. Tall, slender Alum looked more out of place as he struggled to find tasks in Skelly’s vicinity while enduring the solemn scrutiny of every other crew member. Bellin in particular watched him with measuring eyes and a flat mouth.
