Robin Hobb - The Dragon Keeper

She sounded calm, even to herself. “And Leftrin has already agreed to this?”

Sedric folded his lips and then sighed. “Agree or not, it must happen. I think he was on the point of agreeing when he heard some sort of outcry from the keepers and went to check on them.”

She knew he was lying. Leftrin hadn’t been on the point of agreeing to anything. The current that had caught them was sweeping them together, not apart. She seized the opportunity to change the subject. “What was the outcry about?”

“I don’t know. The keepers looked as if they were all gathering…”

“I’m going to go and see,” she announced and turned away from him in mid-speech. She was halfway to the bow before he overcame his astonishment.

“Alise!”

She ignored him.

“Alise!” He put every bit of command into the shout that he could muster. He saw her shoulders twitch. She’d heard him. He watched her seize the bow railing in both hands and swing a leg over it. Her walking skirts wrapped and tangled. Patiently, she shook them out and then clambered over the railing and down the rope ladder to the muddy shore. She vanished from his view, and then in a few moments he saw her hurrying across the tramped grass and patches of mud toward the clustered keepers. A dragon was moving slowly to join them. Sedric’s breath caught for a moment in his chest. Would it be able to tell?

Me watched them gather; he could hear the sounds of their voices but couldn’t make out the words. His anxiety built and he suddenly turned from the railing and hurried to his crude cabin. He opened the door, stepped into the dim, close chamber, and shut the door firmly behind him. He fastened the simple hook that was the only way to secure the door and then dropped to his knees. The “secret” drawer in the bottom of his wardrobe suddenly looked pathetically obvious. He unlatched it and dragged it open, all the while listening for the sound of footfalls on the deck outside. Was there a better place to hide his trove? Should he keep it all together or scatter it amongst his possessions? He bit his lip, debating.

Last night, he had added two items to his store. He held up to the dim light in the cabin a glass flask. The dragon blood filled it, smoky red and swirling when he held it to the light. Last night, he’d thought he’d imagined that motion, but he hadn’t. The stuff in the flask was still rich red, liquid and moving as if it were itself alive.

For several days, he had been watching the small brown dragon and daring himself to act. Each morning, the hunters departed before dawn, leading the way up the river in the hope of bagging game before the dragons could frighten it away. When the sun was higher and the day warmer, the dragons awoke. Usually the golden one was the first one to seek the water’s edge. The others soon trailed after him. The keepers followed in their small boats and behind them all came the barge.

Yesterday and the day before, the little brown dragon had lagged badly. He had not kept up with the other dragons but had waded alone between them and the keepers who followed them. Yesterday, even the keepers had passed him. The brown dragon had barely stayed ahead of the barge. Sedric’s attention had been attracted to it when he found Alise and Leftrin on the bow, looking down on it and commiserating with one another over how pitiable it was. He joined them there, leaning on the bowrail and watching the stunted dragon slog drearily against the river’s pale flow. For a moment, the colour of the water caught his attention. It was not nearly as white as it had been during the Paragon ’s upriver journey. It looked almost like ordinary river water. The captain had made some comment to Alise; Sedric heard only her response.

“It is harder for him. Look at how short his legs are. The other dragons are wading but he’s nearly swimming.”

Leftrin had nodded agreement. “Poor thing never had a chance, really. He was doomed from the day he hatched. Still, I hate to see him die this way.”

“Better that he die trying to make something of his life than that he die in the mud near Cassarick.” Alise had spoken with such passion that Sedric had turned to look at her. It was then that he realized with some alarm the depth of her attraction to Leftrin. It was not difficult to see how her words applied to her own life. She is daring herself to act on her urges, he’d realized in awe. Given all he knew of Alise, it would be a matter of when, not if, she would give herself to Leftrin. The thought of how Hest would react to that sent a finger of cold tracing his spine. Hest might not be in love with Alise, but he regarded her as he did all his possessions, with jealous ownership. If Leftrin “took” her, Hest would be infuriated. And he would blame Sedric almost as much as he’d blame her.

The discomfort he’d felt that every passing day took them deeper into wilderness and farther away from home suddenly became pressing. It was time to get Alise and himself out of here and back to Bingtown.

Then he thought of his paltry collection of dragon bits and scowled. He’d been checking them daily. They didn’t look like anything he’d be willing to include in a medicine or tonic. The flesh that Thymara had carved away from the silver dragon’s injury had been half-putrefied to begin with. Despite his efforts at preservation, the samples smelled foul and looked as one would expect any sort of decayed meat to look. The last time he had looked at them, he had very nearly thrown them away. Instead, he had resolved only to keep them until he had the opportunity to replace them with something better, something specific from the list of dragon items that he knew he could sell.

Somehow, that thought had surfaced again in his mind as he stared down on the feeble brown dragon struggling to stay ahead of them. And suddenly he had known that he would never have a better chance than that night.

It had not been that hard to slip away from the ship at night. Each evening, Leftrin nosed the Tarman onto the muddy banks of the river as close as he could get to wherever the dragons were sleeping. Some nights the keepers slept on board; sometimes they bedded down near their dragon wards. He had been fortunate. The dragons had settled for the night on a grassy shore and their keepers had decided to collect driftwood and sleep near them. Leftrin himself had taken the watch. Alise had been his unwitting accomplice for she had distracted the captain so completely that Sedric had no problem in stealthily leaving the ship.

The dying glow of the keepers’ bonfire and the nearly full moon had been enough to light his way. He’d slogged over trampled grass and through puddles as best he could, resigned that his boots and trousers would be sodden and caked with mud by the time he returned. He’d taken care earlier in the evening to watch the dragons as they settled, so he knew approximately where the exhausted brown was sleeping. It had been late and both the keepers and their dragons had been sleeping soundly as he moved cautiously among and then past them. The sickly dragon slept alone on the outskirts of the group. It hadn’t stirred as he’d drawn near it. At first, he’d thought it was already dead. He could detect no movement and heard no sign of it breathing. He’d forced himself to boldness, and cautiously set a hand to the creature’s filthy shoulder. It made no response. He gave it a slight push, and then a harder shove. It made a wheezing sound but did not move. Sedric had taken out his knife.

His first ambition had been to claim a few scales. The shoulder was perfect; he’d used his opportunity to observe the dragons while Alise attempted to talk to them to good use. He knew that the larger scales were usually on their shoulders, hips and the broadest parts of their tails. By the moonlight’s feeble gleam, he had slipped the edge of his knife under a scale, pinched it hard against the blade with his thumb and jerked. The scale did not come out easily; it was rather like pulling a plate from the bottom of a stack. But it came, edged with gleaming blood. The dragon gave a twitch but slept on, apparently too feeble to care.