Dragon Haven (17 page)

Sintara chested her way through the floating mat of debris. It was hard for the dragon to accept the advice not to try and clamber on top of it. Thymara could feel her weariness, her need just to stop struggling and rest. Her heart leaped with joy when she saw first Sylve and then Tats venturing out across the packed branches and logs toward them. “Be careful!” she shouted at them. “If you fall and go under, we’ll never find you under this mat.”

“I know!” Tats was the one to reply. “But we have to pull some of it out of the way so Sintara can reach the trees. We’ve been able to help some of the dragons get at least a floating log under their chests to help hold them up.

“That would be welcome,” Sintara immediately replied, and by that admission, Thymara knew she was far more tired than she had thought.

“We have to get off her,” she told Alise in a low voice. “The mat looks thick enough to support us, if we go carefully.”

Alise was already moving the sash from her gown. It was longer than Thymara had expected, for the Bingtown woman had looped it twice around her waist. “Tie this to your wrist,” she suggested. “And I’ll do the same. If one of us slips, the other can save her.”

Thymara clambered down first, half sliding down the dragon’s slick shoulder. She was grateful for the sash on her wrist as Alise pulled her up short of the mat and let her select her landing spot. There was a nearby log with a branch sticking out. Thymara made the successful hop to it, and though it dipped and rocked under her weight, it did not roll and dump her in. She suspected that it had many submerged branches that were now so tangled with other debris that it could not easily shift.

“It’s good! Come down,” she called back to Alise. She glanced over to see that Tats had nearly reached the log and stepped onto it. “Stay back!” she warned him. “Let me get Alise down and onto this before you add any more weight to it.” He halted where he was, clearly displeased and anxious, but listening to her. As Alise ventured down, clinging to Sintara’s wing as she came, she heard Sylve’s voice on the other side of Sintara.

“We have to go slowly, or you’ll dump me in the river. I’ll come toward you on this log. As my weight pushes it down, you’ll try to put a front leg over it. Then, as I back up, you’ll try to edge sideways along it. So far, we’ve been able to help three dragons get some flotation this way. Are you ready to try?”

“Very ready,” the dragon replied. She sounded almost grateful and very unlike her usual self. Thymara almost smiled. Perhaps after this, she might see her keepers in a different light.

She gasped aloud as Tats caught her by the arm. “I’ve got you,” he said comfortingly. “Come this way.”

“Let go! You’re throwing me off balance.” At the hurt look that crossed his face, she added more placatingly, “We have to make room for Alise on the log. Move back, Tats.” As he obeyed her, she said in a quieter voice, “I’m so glad to see you alive that I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Besides ‘let go!’?” he asked with bitter humor.

“I’m not angry with you anymore,” she told him, a bit surprised to find it was true. “To your left, Alise!” she called as the woman, still clinging to Sintara’s wing, groped for a place to set her foot. “A little more, a little more…there. You’re right over it. Ease your weight down.”

The Bingtown woman obeyed her, letting out a small squeak as the log initially sank under her weight. She lowered her other foot and stood, arms outstretched like a bird trying to dry its wings after a storm. No sooner was her weight off the dragon than Sintara made a lunge to try to get her front leg over the log that Sylve was weighing down. The dragon’s abrupt movement sent the whole debris pack to rocking. Alise cried out but swayed with the motion, keeping her balance. Thymara, bereft of pride, crouched and then sat on the log. “Lower your weight!” she suggested to Alise. “We can crawl along the logs until we reach a place where things are a bit more stable.”

“I can balance,” the Bingtown woman replied, and although her voice shook a bit, she kept her upright stance.

“As you wish,” Thymara replied. “I’m crawling.” She suspected that her many years’ experience in the treetops had taught her not to take risks unless she had to. She scuttled along
the log to its widest end, where its snaggled roots reared up out of the river. There she stood, catching hold of the roots. Tats had preceded her. He now gave her a sideways glance and offered, “I’ll show you the way I came out here. Parts of this mat are thicker than others.”

“Thank you,” she replied and waited for Alise to catch up with her, gathering up the slackened sash as she came. She glanced back at Sintara, feeling a bit guilty that she was letting Sylve do the work of caring for her dragon. The small girl moved confidently, instructing the dragon in what she wished her to do. Thymara sighed with relief. She could handle it.

“Sylve managed to recapture one of the boats,” Tats said over his shoulder. “She’s the one who pulled me out of the water.”

“I remember when I thought she was too young and childish for an expedition like this,” Thymara observed, and she was surprised when Tats laughed aloud.

“Adversity brings out the best in us, I suppose.” They’d reached the first of the large trees. Thymara paused by it, resting her hand on it. It felt so good. It shivered in the passing current, but even so, it felt more solid than anything she had touched in hours. She longed to sink her claws in the bark and climb, but she was still tethered to Alise.

“There’s one with some lower branches just over there,” Tats told her.

“A good choice,” she agreed. Under the trees, the debris was packed more tightly. It still bobbed under her feet with every step she took, but it was easy to dance across it to the tree that Tats had indicated. As she became more confident of simple survival, a hundred other concerns tried to crowd to the forefront of her mind. She held her questions until they reached the tree Tats had indicated. Thymara climbed a short way up it, sank in claws, and then assisted Alise as Tats gave her a boost to start her up the trunk. The Bingtown woman did not climb well, but between the two of them, they managed to get her up the trunk and onto a stout, almost horizontal branch. It was wide enough for her to lie down on, but she sat cross-legged in the exact middle and crossed her arms.

“Are you cold?” Thymara asked her.

“No. This robe keeps me surprisingly warm. But my face and hands hurt from the river water.”

“I think my scales kept me from the worst of it,” Thymara said and then wondered that she had said it aloud.

The Bingtown woman nodded. “Then I envy you that. This Elderling robe seemed to protect me from the water. I don’t understand how. I got wet, but I dried very quickly. And where the gown touches me, I don’t feel any irritation from the water.”

Tats was the one to shrug. “Lots of Elderling stuff does things you wouldn’t think it could. Wind chimes that play tunes when the wind blows. Metal that lights up when you touch it. Jewels that smell like perfume and never lose their scent. It’s magical, that’s all.”

Thymara nodded and then asked, “How many of us are here?”

“Most of us,” he said. “Everyone has scratches or bruises. Kase got a nasty gash on his leg, but the water seemed to burn it closed. So I suppose there’s a mercy to that as we don’t have anything to use for bandaging. Ranculos got hit in the ribs with something. When he snorts, blood comes out of his nose, but he insists he’ll be fine if we leave him alone. Harrikin has asked that we do that. He says Ranculos doesn’t want any of us fussing over him. Boxter got hit in the face with something; his eyes are blackened, and he can barely see out of them. Tinder hurt his wing, and at first Nortel thought it was broken. But the swelling went down and now he can move it, so we’re thinking it’s just a bad sprain. Lots of injuries for everyone. But at least they’re here.”

Thymara just looked at him. “What else?” Alise demanded

He took a breath. “Alum’s missing. And Warken. Alum’s dragon keeps trumpeting for him, so we wonder if he is still alive somewhere. We’ve tried talking to Arbuc, but no one can make sense of him. It’s like trying to talk to a scared little child. He just keeps trumpeting and repeating that he wants Alum to come and take him out of the water. Warken’s red is silent; Baliper won’t speak to any of us. Veras, Jerd’s dragon, is also missing. Jerd hasn’t stopped weeping since she got here. She says she can’t ‘feel’ her dragon, so she thinks she drowned.”

“We saw Veras! She was alive and swimming strongly, but the current was carrying her downriver.”

“Well, I still think that’s good news. You should tell her.”

Something in his voice alerted Thymara that worse news was to come. She held her breath, waiting for it, but Alise asked immediately, “What about Tarman and Captain Leftrin?”

“Some of us saw the ship, right after the wave first hit. The water went over the top of him, but we saw him bob up again, with white water streaming out of his scuppers. So he was upright and afloat the last time we saw him, but that’s all we know. We haven’t seen anyone from the boat’s crews or any of the hunters, so we hope they were aboard and rode it out on Tarman.”

“If they did, they’ll come to find us. Captain Leftrin will come for us.” She spoke with such heartfelt confidence that Thymara almost felt sorry for her. If he didn’t come, she thought, Alise would be hard put to accept that she must rescue herself.

She looked flatly at Tats. “And what else?” she demanded.

“The silver dragon isn’t here. And neither is Relpda, the little copper queen.”

Thymara sighed. “I wondered if they would survive. Neither was very smart, and the copper was always sickly. Perhaps it was a mercy that they went so quickly.” She looked at Tats, wondering if he would agree with her. But he didn’t seem to hear her words. “Who else?” she asked flatly.

A small stillness followed her question, as if the world paused to prepare itself to grieve. “Heeby. And Rapskal. They aren’t here, and no one saw anything of either of them after the wave hit.”

“But I left him with you!” she protested, as if somehow that meant it were Tats’s fault. She saw him wince and knew he felt the same.

“I know. One moment we were standing there arguing. The next, the water slapped us down. I never saw him again.”

Thymara crouched down on the tree branch and waited for pain and tears to come. They didn’t. Instead a strange numbness flowed up from her belly. She had killed him. She had killed him by getting so angry at him that she’d stopped caring about
him. “I was so angry at him,” she confessed to Tats. “What he told me ruined my idea of him, and I thought I’d just have to stop knowing him, stop letting him be near me. And now he’s gone.”

“Ruined your idea of him?” Tats asked cautiously.

“I just never thought he’d do a thing like that. I’d thought he was better than that,” she said awkwardly.

Too late she saw that Tats accepted that judgment upon himself as well. “Maybe none of us are quite what the others think we are,” he observed shortly and stood. He walked back toward the trunk, and she could not think of any words to call him back.

Alise called after him, “No one can know that he and Heeby are dead. He might have made it to the
Tarman.
Maybe Captain Leftrin will bring him back to us.”

Tats glanced back at them. His voice was flat as he said, “I’m going to tell Jerd that you saw Veras. It might give her a little comfort. Greft has been trying to encourage her, but she hasn’t been listening to him.”

“That’s a good idea,” Alise agreed. “Tell her that when we saw her dragon, she was afloat and swimming strongly.”

Thymara let him go. Let him go to comfort Jerd. It didn’t matter to her. She had let go of him when she had let go of Rapskal. She hadn’t really known either of them. It was much better to keep her heart to herself. She wondered if she were being stupid. Did she have to hold on to her hurt and anger? Could she just let it go and forgive him and have him back as her friend? For a moment, it seemed as if it were purely her decision; she could make what he had done an important matter or she could let it go as just something that had happened. Holding on to it was hurting both of them. Before she had known what he had done with Jerd, he’d been her friend. All that had changed was that now she knew.

“But I can’t unknow it,” she whispered to herself. “And knowing that he could do something like that does show me that he’s a different person from what I believed.”

“Are you all right?” Alise asked her. “Did you say something?”

“No, just talking to myself.” Thymara lifted her hands and covered her eyes. She was safe and her clothing was starting to dry out. She was hungry, but the hunger was beyond her tiredness and hurt. She could wait to deal with it. “I think I’m going to find a place to sleep for a bit.”

“Oh.” Alise sounded disappointed. “I was hoping we’d go and talk with the others. Find out what they saw and what happened to them.”

“You go ahead. I don’t mind being alone.”

“But—” Alise began, and Thymara suddenly saw her problem. She’d probably never climbed a tree before, let alone clambered around through a network of trees. Alise needed her help but didn’t want to ask. Thymara suddenly longed for simple sleep and time alone. Her head was starting to pound, and she wished there were a private place where she could go to weep until she could sleep. Rapskal wandered through her thoughts with his insouciant grin and good humor. Gone. Gone from her twice now, in less than one night. Gone, most likely, forever.

Her chin quivered suddenly, and she might have given way right in front of Alise had Sylve not saved her. The girl came clambering up the trunk like a squirrel, with Harrikin close behind her. He climbed like a lizard, belly to the trunk, as Thymara did. Once they had gained the branch, he folded up his long lean body and perched with his back to the trunk. Sylve dusted her hands on her stained breeches and informed them, “We’ve got Sintara afloat and resting. Harrikin helped me and we got a couple of logs under her chest. We’ve jammed the logs against trees and the current should hold them there, but we roped them with vines just in case. She’s not comfortable, but she’s not going to drown. And the water has already begun to drop. We can tell from the water mark on the trees that it’s going down.”