Blood of Dragons

‘As they used to, and will again,’ Alise continued. She glanced over at him. ‘Seeing them in flight, watching all of you change … it puts a different light on all that I discovered in the course of my early studies. Dragons were the centre of the Elderling civilizations, with humans a separate population that lived apart from them, in settlements like the ones we found here. Humans raised crops and cattle which they traded to Elderlings in exchange for their wondrous goods. Look at the city across the river, Tats, and ask yourself, how did they feed themselves?’

‘Well, there were herds on the outskirts of the cities. Probably places to grow crops …’

‘Probably. But humans were the ones to do that. Elderlings gave themselves and their lives over to their magic, and to tending the dragons. All they did and built and created was not for themselves, but for the dragons who overshadowed them.’

‘Ruled them? The dragons ruled them?’ He wasn’t enjoying the images in his mind.

‘“Ruled” isn’t quite the right word. Does Fente rule you?’

‘Of course not!’

‘And yet you gave your days over to hunting for her, and grooming her and otherwise caring for her.’

‘But I wanted to do those things.’

Alise smiled. ‘And that is why “ruled” is the wrong word. Charmed? Englamoured? I’m not sure quite how to express it, but you do already know what I mean. If these dragons breed and bring more of their kind into the world, then inevitably they will end up running the world for their own benefit.’

‘That sounds so selfish!’

‘Does it? Isn’t it what humans have done for generations? We claim the land as ours and turn it to our purposes. We change the channels of rivers and the face of the land so that we can travel by boat or grow a crop or graze cattle. And we think it only natural that we should shape the whole world to be comfortable and yielding for humankind. Why should dragons be any different in how they perceive the world?’

Tats was quiet for a time.

‘It may not be a bad thing at all,’ Alise observed into his silence. ‘Maybe humans will lose some of their pettiness if they have dragons to contend with. Ah, look! Is that Ranculos? I would not have believed it possible!’

The huge scarlet dragon was in the air. He was not graceful. His tail was still too skinny, and his hindquarters flimsy for his size. Tats was about to observe that he was only gliding after a launch from a higher point, but at that moment the dragon’s wings began to beat heavily, and what had been a glide turned into laboured flight as he gained altitude.

Tats became aware of Harrikin. The tall slender keeper was racing down the hillside, almost in his dragon’s shadow. As Ranculos beat his wings and rose upward, Harrikin cried out, ‘Ware your course! Bank, bank your wings left! Not over the river, Ranculos! Not over the river!’

His cry was thin and breathless, and Tats doubted that the huge dragon heard him at all. If he did, he paid him no mind. Perhaps he was full of exhilaration; or perhaps he had decided to fly or die trying.

The red dragon lumbered into the sky, his hind legs dangling and twitching as he tried to pull them up into alignment with the rest of his body. Some of the other keepers were adding their voices to Harrikin’s now. ‘Too soon, Ranculos, too soon!’

‘Come back! Circle back!’

The red dragon ignored them. His laboured efforts carried him farther and farther from the shore. The steady beat of his wings became an uneven flapping.

‘What is he doing? What is he thinking?’

‘Silence!’ A trumpeted blast of sound and thought from Mercor quenched them all. ‘Watch!’ he commanded both humans and dragons.

Ranculos hung suspended, wings wide now. His uncertainty was plain. He tipped and teetered as he began a wide circle, losing altitude as he did so. Then, as if realizing that he was closer to Kelsingra than the village, he resumed his course. But his weariness was evident now. His body drooped between his wings. The intersection of dragon and river became both obvious and inevitable.

‘No-o-o-o!’ Harrikin’s low cry was a sound of agony. He stood stiffly, hands clutching at his face, his nails sinking into his cheeks as he stared. Ranculos’s glide carried him farther and farther from the village. Below him, the grey river’s greedy current raced relentlessly. Sylve gave Mercor a cautious glance, and then ran to stand beside Harrikin. Lecter plodded down the hillside toward his foster-brother, his broad shoulders slumped as if he shared Harrikin’s desperation and already knew the outcome.