Mercedes Lackey - Elvenblood

That's probably Kola's doing, he decided, after surveying his own little pie-slice of carpeted tent. She must have been taking care of all of this while we were talking. What an amazing woman! She and Diric work so well together—

It would be so wonderful if he could find someone like Kala…

He lay down on his pallet and waited, listening with every fiber for the sounds of the other people in the tent to die away. He didn't think that Mero and Sheyrena were likely to wander off hand in hand under the moon; not tonight, anyway. If they were as exhausted as he was—

Well, maybe they weren't. They hadn't fought; he had. Unless, of course, they'd all pitched in to subdue Jamal while he - and Myre fought in the skies.

Gradually, though, the murmurs of conversation and the sounds of people moving about, the little shifts in the floor and creak of wood as people walked, died away.

Finally.

He needed to get out. Dora must be frantic by now. And he was starving. He hadn't wanted to take the easy way out and ask for a cow or two; people were frightened enough of him and he didn't want to frighten them further by eating in front of them.

He slipped out of the darkened tent, wound his way through the camp as silent as a cat, moving from shadow to shadow with all of the skill of any predator. There was no moon tonight, which was a help, and most people were so bewildered and agitated by the turn of events today that they were keeping to their own dwellings while they sorted things out.

In some ways, Keman felt rather sorry for them. The Iron People were so ruled by tradition—and yet today so many things had happened that didn't fit within that tradition that they must feel almost as confused as if they had awakened to find themselves camped in the midst of a glacier, floating on the ocean, or perched atop a mountain-peak.

It certainly wasn't every day that you found a pair of dragons fighting over your head—then saw them both turn into people afterwards—and one of them was someone you knew. Then you discovered that your War Chief had been consorting with the other one in order to get you into a war against demons, and your Priest had been consorting with the one you knew, in order to trade with the demons. Poor things. No wonder every tent buzzed with talk, and most of it sounded confused.

Still, Diric has them convinced, 1 think. He'd have had more trouble if Shana had asked him for direct help against the elves, but I think he can manage to get them calmed down under the current circumstances.

But now he was going to have to force a confrontation on Dora. He hadn't wanted to, not this early, but there wasn't going to be much choice.

She's going to have to choose between running back to her own Lair—and—

And what? And him?

But what choice did he have?

With her help we can all travel back to the Citadel in a few days. Sheyrena is light enough that Kalamadea can carry her double with Lorryn. But without Dora—we'll have to make

double trips, because I can't carry two people for very long. That's going to take time that we just don't have.

Besides that, in the morning all six of them were leaving this place. Dora would have to reveal herself sooner or later, so why not sooner? She couldn't hide her presence forever.

He stopped at the edge of the herds, and sent out a questing tendril of thought.

:Here. At the edge of the herds.:

Well, he no longer needed to hide what he was—and he wasn't going to have to explain to any of the herdsmen what he was doing out here! He shifted—slowly, and with a bit of the pain that weariness always caused when he shifted—and lumbered into the air. Muscles ached and joints creaked as he flew.

I am going to have to stay in better shape from now on.

A moment later, Dora met him in the sky above the camp. They flew together, neither one saying a word, as she led him off into the low hills beyond the encampment.

To his surprise and delight, she led him to a cache of freshly killed plains deer, and she waited patiently while he sated his ravenous hunger.

"Oh," he said fervently, when hunger-rage had worn off enough for him to be able to think clearly, "I needed that. Thank you."

"I knew you would," she replied, gravely. "Keman—I didn't know what to think when I saw that strange female! And then when she spoke—and you fought—I was so afraid for you!"

The words came out of her reluctantly, as if she was as afraid to voice her feelings as he was.

"I wanted to help you," she continued, "but I didn't know how."

"You couldn't have done anything," he told her, bluntly. "Myre has resented me from the time she was born, I think. That resentment curdled into hate long before we met, you and I. Anything you could have done to help me would just have delayed things between Myre and me."

"Oh." Her head sagged, deflated. "All I could think of was that you'd be hungry."

"I was. Thank you." He sat down on his haunches, wondering what to say next. Well, better get it out of the way at once.

"We're leaving tomorrow."

Her head shot up, her eyes wide. "Is it because of what she said, your sister? About the elves, and your wizard friends?"

"She didn't have any reason to lie, and plenty of reasons to tell the truth. We have to assume that's what she did," he replied. "We have to get back—Shana has to settle things with the wizards in case the elves do mount an attack, and Lorryn and Rena both think they have a plan to disrupt the situation in the elven lords' ranks. But we haven't much time."

"So you're leaving." She looked as if she'd bitten into something bitter. "I promised to help you escape, but it doesn't look as if you need me now."

Was that all that was troubling her? "We need you more than ever," he told her. "With your help, if you let Shana ride you, we can fly at something close to our normal speed. Without you, Kalamadea and I will have to make double-trips."

She looked into his eyes. "You're asking me to—to show myself."

He nodded. "Dora, you have to, sooner or later, or else just go home. And what would be the point of that? I'll be telling my Lair about yours. Some of our dragons are going to go looking for yours. And you'll be telling your Lair about all the other Lairs up here! Eventually our Kin are going to meet, whether or not you show yourself to my friends."

But she looked troubled. "Our laws have always said never to show ourselves to two-leggers as we are."

He snorted. "My two-leggers already know what we are, and Myre certainly took the matter of the Iron People out of both of our hands! As my two-legger friends say, 'the horse has been stolen, so what's the point of locking the barn?' You won't be accomplishing anything."

She sighed. "I said I wanted to help you——-"

"But not necessarily my friends?" he asked shrewdly.

She nodded. "I can't help it," she confessed. "It's hard to think of them as people."

"You have to start somewhere," he told her softly, "or you end up like the elves, who don't count anyone who hasn't got full elven blood as 'people.' Or like Myre, who sees anything that isn't a dragon as rightful prey. Can't you see that?"

"I wouldn't want to be like them." Her skin shuddered, and she looked away. "Especially not your sister."

"Then help us, Dora," he said, weariness creeping into his voice. He wasn't as good at this persuasion thing as Shana. He really wished he had Lorryn's gift for it. "Not me, help us."

She still didn't look at him. "I have to think about it," she said slowly. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"All right." He sighed, but what else could he say? He certainly couldn't coerce her, and he didn't want to use a different kind of coercion on her by telling her how very, very much he liked her…