Blood of Dragons

Thymara blinked her eyes. Rapskal’s gaze was pale blue in the dimly lit room. In a bed on the other side of the room, Tats was snoring softly. Without speaking of it, she and Tats had resolved that they would not leave Rapskal on his own. Not tonight. Tats had claimed one of the larger rooms in the dormitory above the dragon baths, one with multiple beds in it. Carson had given them the nod for that. Some of the other keepers had drawn lots for guard duty for their ‘guests’. They had been confined for the night to the dining room. They’d been allowed to bathe and given bedding and most of them seemed to have accepted their fates. A few had complained and one Jamaillian merchant had wailed and ranted about being treated like a ‘criminal, and forced to lie down alongside “filth”’. Carson had drawn a lot for the first watch and Sedric had stayed with him, with Relpda to keep them company. Privately, she doubted that any of their ‘guests’ would attempt to leave with a dragon snoring across the entryway.

She and Tats had herded Rapskal away and up to one of the unoccupied sleeping rooms. Weary as they were, there had been much to discuss. There they had sat, listening to Rapskal unwind his story of the dragon attack on the ships. The longer he talked, the less he sounded like Tellator and the more like his old self.

Rapskal had always been a talker, always the one who could go on and on about any topic. Tats had dozed off before she had. She had listened to him tell his story, listened to him brag of how brave Heeby had been and how glorious the dragons had looked in flight. She had waited in vain for him to say that he was horrified at how many men had died. The old Rapskal would have done so. Instead, he simply seemed to accept it as how a battle went. When she mentioned it, he asked her incredulously, ‘Would you have rather that more dragons died? Poor Tintaglia lies in the Square of the Dragons! By morning, all that will be left of her is her memories and her flesh. The eggs inside her that should have become serpents, our next generation of dragons, die with her tonight! Have you thought of that, Thymara? I must look at that and wonder how I would feel if it were my Heeby lying there. What if it were Sintara?’

‘Sintara,’ she said quietly, and wondered how she would feel. A spark of anger in her heart surprised her. In a distant corner of her mind, her dragon spoke softly. You would be devastated. And furious. Just as they are.

I would, she admitted. She pulled her mind free of the dragon’s. But what would she do if something befell her dragon? What happened to an Elderling when her dragon died?

They die, too. Not right away, but sooner than if the dragon had lived.

She pushed Sintara from her mind again. She didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about what would become of Malta and Reyn and their baby. ‘Our dragons are back in Kelsingra now, alive and well. It’s over, Rapskal.’

‘It’s not over,’ he insisted, and she heard a tinge of Tellator’s stubbornness in his voice.

‘It is,’ she replied. ‘Our dragons are here in Kelsingra and safe. They never need leave here again. The man who led the attackers here, that Chalcedean noble, is dead. And that corrupt Trader promised he would reveal everyone who plotted against the dragons. They will be punished. So. It’s over.’

Rapskal shook his head. They were both sitting on his bed. Tats still snored on the bed on the other side of the room. Thymara leaned back on the wall. She was ready to fall asleep but wanted Rapskal to sleep before she did. She could outlast him. She hoped.

Rapskal crossed his arms on his chest. ‘The dragons can’t and won’t stay here for ever. It’s not in their nature, and you, as a hunter, must know that they can’t. They need to move seasonally, to find new prey and give the animal populations a chance to rebuild. Even if we had the herds and flocks here that they need, they were never content to be resident here year round. And they must leave when it’s time to go lay their eggs.’

Those words were not Rapskal’s. She’d never heard him choose such words. She stared at him and he mistook it for avid interest. He smiled at her.

‘Thymara, it won’t be over until the man who sent them is stopped. Think about it. Those men today, those Chalcedeans, they said they were forced against their will to come. I listened to what they said. If they go home without dragon flesh, they and their families will die. Horribly, slowly. If they stay here much longer, sending no messages promising success, their families will be tortured. And when they are all dead, the Duke of Chalced will find others to send. He’s not going to give up.’

‘He’ll die soon. He’s old and diseased and he’ll die soon. And then it will be over.’ She just wanted to go to sleep. He was making her think of all sorts of things she didn’t want to consider just now.