The Dragon Book (70 page)

He gave Kir a contemptuous look. “Tie his arms and legs. Dorn, you get that anchor rock we brought. They’ll never find him on the bottom.”

“Andir?” The one he’d addressed sounded uncertain. “What’s that? It looks like a big surf-dragon.”

“Who cares? I like to spear surf-dragons.” Andir turned back to Tahlia, shifted his grip on the knife.

She tensed.

One of the youths yelled in terror, and, suddenly, the hands holding her down were gone. She scrambled to her feet as Andir lunged at her. The blade gashed her arm, leaving hot pain in its wake. She scrambled back as he lunged at her again, but his bad ankle turned and he fell with a scream of rage. Kir leaped in, grabbing his wrist, twisting it as he struggled for the knife, leaping back in triumph, the blade gleaming in his bloody hand. Then his triumph vanished. “Tahlia …” He pointed.

Xin rose from the water a few lengths from the edge of the mat, her eyes flashing crimson light. Her vestigial swimming wings made a silver blur in the air, growing larger by the second. Water, whipped to froth, boiled up around her, and sudden wind gusted, knocking the two youths who had held Kir to their knees. The boats tore free of their tethers as a waterspout began to grow around the dragon. In a matter of moments, the whirling column towered over the mat, its roar deafening, the cold, wet blast of the wind bringing Tahlia and Kir to their knees as they clung to the weed to keep from being sucked into the whirling funnel.

At the top of the spinning tower, the dragon’s red eyes gleamed balefully.

One of the boats spun overhead to bounce across the weed mat, and Tahlia flattened herself, pulling Kir down beside her. The two cousins screamed as they were pulled into the spinning tower of water. The one named Dorn tried to burrow into the weed mat.

Andir stood straight, his eyes crazy, lips pulled back from his teeth. “You did this, bad-luck eyes!” His hoarse scream cut through the howling of the waterspout. “This is your doing!”

The silvery tower of water leaned across the weed mat, and, in a second, Andir was gone. The waterspout moved away from the mat, churning the water into white froth, spinning toward the horizon. It left a deafening silence in its wake.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Dorn scrambled from his shelter in the weeds, stumbled to the edge of the weed mat, and dove off. A moment later, his head broke the surface, heading back toward the grove. The other two youths followed.

“They’ll drown.” Tahlia stood up, shakily, looked around. “Our boats are gone, too.”

“The waterspout tore all kinds of junk off the mat.” Kir shaded his eyes. “They’ve got floating stuff to hang on to, all of ’em. They’ll make it okay.” He turned a pale face to Tahlia. “Was that your … what was that?”

“I guess that’s … what sea-dragons do.” Tahlia looked toward the horizon. The water spout had vanished. She shivered. “He cut you bad.” She took his hand.

“I can still use it.” He flexed his fingers, winced, then pressed his fingers against the gash across his palm. “And you’re bleeding, too. We’re going to have to swim back. Before the others tell their version to everybody.” He looked grim. “Are you okay to do that?” He frowned. “You’re shaking, Tahlia.”

“Yeah.” She flexed her fingers, drew a shuddering breath. “I am.”

“He was really crazy.” Kir hunched his shoulders. “I mean, he’s always been a bully, but …” He shivered. “Let’s lash some stuff together, big enough for us to rest on if we need to, okay?” He gave her a crooked smile. “I might need that.”

He was worrying about her, not himself, but that seemed like a good idea. Even though the cuts weren’t deep, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to swim all the way back to the grove, even with a piece of floating weed to cling to.

They lashed a small raft together and pushed off, heading for the grove, with the afternoon sun behind them. Before they’d swum more than a hundred lengths from the mat, a large cargo canoe appeared in front of them.

“Slane.” Tahlia clung to their makeshift raft. “I’m so glad to see you. Kir’s hand is cut.”

“Tahlia, what happened?” The healer maneuvered the wide-bottomed boat alongside and reached down to pull them aboard. “The boys showed up hysterical, with stories about some kind of monster. Where’s Andir, Elor, and Qwait?” Anxiety tightened his face. “Kir, how did you cut your hand like that?”

“Taking a knife away from Andir.” Tahlia shook water from her hair. “Andir tried to kill me, they were going to drown Kir. They know what happened. The others. They were part of it.” As the healer stared at her, aghast, she poured out the story of Andir’s arrival and Xin’s transformation.

“I don’t know … that’s not the story they’re telling.” He stared back toward the grove as the light deepened to sunset. “Not that … they’re very coherent.”

His shoulders were hunched, and he wasn’t looking at her. “Slane, take me back to the weed mat. I have a camp there. Take Kir in. He wasn’t part of this.”

“You are
so
wrong.” Kir grabbed her shirt, yanked her around to face him. “What are you thinking?” Angry tears gleamed in his eyes. “What am I? Nothing? I was there, too. I’m going to tell ’em what happened. We both are. No way you go off and wait for those liars to stir up a mob against you.”

“I should just go.” She looked away.

“I ought to hit you.” Kir scooted across the canoe bottom so that she had to look at him. “You’re my friend. It matters to
me
if it doesn’t to you.”

“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. “It does matter to me, Kir. I’m sorry.” She looked down. “And don’t hit me. You’re already bleeding again.”

“Oh. I guess I am.” He clenched his hand into a fist, blood dripping onto the floor of the canoe.

“You’ll come stay with me.” Slane had straightened and drove the canoe through the water with fierce strokes. “No one will dare enter without my permission. We’ll see this through.”

They didn’t get that far. As they neared the grove in the fading light, Tahlia made out the shapes of many canoes clustered along the shore. Oil lamps glowed in the gloom between the trunks, and it seemed as if every resident of the grove clustered on the lashed platform of the floating dock that skirted the massive trunks.

“Healer, did you find them?” A voice rang out. “Who’s with you?”

Sidon, the head of the grove’s council.

Andir’s father.

“Did you find Kir?” Another voice rang out. “Did she kill him, too?”

“Father, she didn’t kill anyone.” Kir leaped to the prow of the boat, balancing there as Slane stilled its forward motion. “Andir tried to kill her. With a knife.” He thrust his slashed palm into the air. “He was crazy. And they were helping him. All of them.”

“That’s a lie!” The three surviving boys stood in the midst of the council members in the middle of the dock. The tallest one, Zoav, pushed forward. “She called up a demon. He’s just trying to cover up for her.”

“We need to sift truth from untruth here.” Slane raised his voice, but the crowd was pressing forward so that wavelets lapped over the dock as it sank beneath the load. Shouts of “bad luck” and “demon eyes” rose above the murmur.

“We need to sort this out.” Slane dug his paddle into the water to back the canoe away from the dock, but already boats had pushed off, arcing out to cut off escape.

“She must answer for these deaths.” Sidon’s voice boomed above the crowd noise. “No one will harm her until we decide her fate.”

“Kill her before she can call the demon!” A woman with a taut face burst to the front of the dock. “While we wait and squabble, she is calling it back.” Hair wild about her face, she flung out her hand, finger like a spear thrust at Tahlia’s chest. “She must pay for my son’s death, and she must die before she can kill more of our children. Quickly!” Her voice rose to a scream. “I tell you, she’s calling it now!”

“No,” Tahlia cried, but her voice was lost in a rising clamor. Some leaped into boats, others tried to hold them back. Sidon was shouting, but only a handful of people were listening to him.

Slane thrust his paddle deep into the water, but a half dozen canoes had already cut him off, arrowed toward them. In the foremost canoe, a grim-faced man held a fishing spear, its long, barbed head bloody in the sinking sun’s light. Behind him, Kir’s father drove the boat forward, his face stark with fear and anger.

“No.” Kir leaped in front of Tahlia. “You’re wrong. Don’t do this, Father.”

A spear thunked into the side of the canoe, and, a second later, Slane cried out as an arrow sank into his arm. He dropped the paddle, grabbed for it with his good hand as it splashed into the water. The boat driven by Kir’s father slammed into their stern and Tahlia fell to her knees, grabbing for the side of the boat as she nearly went over. Kir managed to keep his footing, arms spread, his face desperate in the sunset light. “We’re telling the truth!
Listen
to us!”

The man with the spear drew back his arm. Tahlia’s eyes seemed frozen to the gleaming point with its wicked barbs. She wanted to duck, leap overboard, but her muscles wouldn’t obey her.

Screams from behind her seeped through her fear. The spearman hesitated, head turning. With a cry, he lowered his spear, turned. Tahlia followed his gaze. There, in the deepening twilight, a serpentine neck rose from the swells. Xin shrieked, eyes flashing crimson light brighter than the setting sun. She reared out of the water, rising taller and taller, her wings beating, expanding, whipping the water into white foam. The water seethed, began to whirl about her. It caught the canoe paddled by Kir’s father, sucked it toward the maelstrom.

Already the water was rising into a white, spinning tower. Wind-driven spray stung Tahlia’s face, and she clung to the boat as it rocked in the sudden chop.

“No!” Kir leaped from the canoe, splashing into the water between the boats, grabbing on to the gunwale of his father’s boat. “Tahlia, don’t let it!”

A dozen canoes were in the water, and the waves generated by the waterspout washed across the dock, carrying grove residents shrieking into the water.

“Stop!” Tahlia leaped to her feet, balancing lightly on the bucking canoe. “Stop it now!”

They want to kill you.
Xin turned her attention once more to the canoes and the people struggling in the water.

“No!” Tahlia threw all the weight of her fear into the word. “Go away, Xin. Go fly up with the others! Now!”

Fly up?
Xin’s voice in her head was heavy with hurt.
With the others?

“Yes.” Tahlia closed her eyes. “Go. Now.”

We don’t fly up.
And she dove. Just like that, the water quieted.

She was gone. Her absence rang in Tahlia’s head.

For the space of a dozen heartbeats, the only sound was the slap of water against the dock and the grove trunks. Then the clamor began again as residents hauled people from the water. The canoes closed on them from all sides, bumping against the sides of the healer’s boat, cutting off all escape. Kir’s father had hauled his son into the boat and was paddling toward the dock with him. Kir hung over the stern, his mouth open, yelling something to her.

She couldn’t hear his words. Bowed her head as hands grabbed her, hard, unforgiving fingers bruising her arms.

And then they let go. Canoes were pushing away from their boat. More shrieks rose from the grove dock. Tahlia blinked into the thickening dusk, squinting against the last bloody beams of light from the vanishing sun, looking for the dragon.

“Kark!” The healer’s voice broke, and he leaned over the side of the canoe, tipping it dangerously as he grabbed for the dropped paddle with his good hand.

Tahlia stared around, her heart a stone in her chest. There they were, three tall ships barely visible against the bloody light of the dying day, hidden until the last by the magic of their captains. Already small, sleek boats were dropping into the water, speeding toward the grove on a white tail of foam.

Each powered by a captive’s life force, drained to power the magic.

“Tahlia, paddle.” Slane’s command came low and urgent. “Quickly! Back to the mat. They’ll focus on the grove and taking captives.”

“Kir.” She peered toward the grove, but his father’s canoe was lost in the chaos of grove residents arming themselves, docking canoes, scrambling up the trunks. “I can’t leave Kir.”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was harsh. “He doesn’t matter. You do.”

She grabbed the gunwale to vault into the water.

Something hit her in the back of the head, and red light exploded behind her eyes, then blackness came rushing in.

SHE woke to blue sky overhead and throbbing pain in her head. “I’m sorry.” Slane’s face moved into view, blocking out the sky. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Here.” He held a bowl to her lips as he slid an arm beneath her shoulders. “This will help.”

She grimaced at the bitter taste of the brew, but her headache faded some as she sat up. “Kir.” She started to get up, but Slane’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

Three Kark ships floated just off the grove, and dark longboats plied back and forth. They went to the grove empty, came back loaded with bound captives. Mostly children, it looked like. Numbly she watched as one of the small boats pulled alongside the ship and the first captive was winched upward by his bound hands. At this distance, she could make out the pale shapes of the chained slaves along the deck rail. Their life force fed the magic that moved the ships. For a while. Until it was gone. The boy being hoisted to the deck was struggling fiercely, in spite of the ropes that bound hands and feet. Kir? She squinted, but the tears in her eyes blurred his features. It could be. In a moment he was dragged on deck, and one of the raiders leaned over him, swinging a club, his sun-darkened shoulders gleaming with sweat as he struck. She looked away, her throat so tight that she could barely breathe. “They came because of me, didn’t they?” she whispered. “One of the ketrels must have seen the dragon, must have followed us back.”