The Dragon Round (16 page)

More importantly, they need the distraction. They've built up their camp as much as they can. The poth has planted herbs and small vegetables. She surrounded it with so many replanted flowers of such variety and color that it looks like an island on the island, a wondrous and magical refuge. Their days have settled into a routine that he finds comfortable; every chore completed another galley brought into port, but which drives her crazy—as does his comfort in routine. Apparently there is a limit to how long she can study plants each day. She's mapped the island and found no other signs of civilization—man, giant, or dwarf. She's found many more blue crabs and black frogs. She would have tried to build a sundial if it weren't for all the hour lines having to be labeled
YOU ARE ON AN ISLAND
. She's been spending more time at the basin rock.

However well they've worked together, however curious that has been for him, the lack of novelty has led to her sniping at him and to him returning fire. It's made the days unpleasant, the nights more so, and the wyrmling sullen.

So they're looking forward to an adventure with Gray, whose
wings have begun turning gray and who increasingly uses them instead of walking. There's nothing worse than being dive-bombed by a wyrmling who thinks you've slept long enough.

The poth emerges from behind the bamboo screen he built between their sleeping areas after too many leaves fell. Her hair is wet and held in a loose bun by two bamboo spikes. Her skin is bright and tight from the lotion she made out of her soap, and she smells minty from the nepeta she put in it. Her smock, faded and worn thin in places, but deftly repaired in others, swishes from a fresh washing. She wears her sword on a shoulder belt made of cloth from the hem of her smock and reinforced with palm thread. She's even put in some rudimentary embroidery.

Jeryon feels underdressed. There's dirt between his toes.

She greets him with bright eyes. “Let's go!” she says. “Where's Gray?”

He points up. The dragon is sitting on a high branch, her elbows held up to arch her wings, her neck bent low. A black vulture found its way to the island recently. The wyrmling took to imitating its looming posture before they killed and ate it.

Jeryon whistles twice. The mighty vulture raises her snout and considers the call of carrion ripe on the forest floor. It opens its wings to declare to the world,
The kill is mine
. She steps off her mountain perch. Let the hawk dive. Let the larus plummet. The mighty vulture spirals lazily, the stench of rot and blood making her buoyant. She is surprised, though. The kill still walks and whistles. The mighty vulture flicks its tongue at it and thinks it needs a bath.

Jeryon says, “Put your tongue away.” The wyrmling sits and looks at him. He shakes his head. “I want you hungry.”

The mighty vulture lowers her gaze. She is displeased.

They set off for the dragon hollow. The path is well worn, the leaves and underbrush giving way to packed dirt. They walk side by side, with the dragon flying from tree to tree and sometimes disappearing above the canopy. Everlyn bumps Jeryon with her shoulder,
he steps aside to avoid crowding her and she bumps him again. He looks at her, wondering why she can't keep to her side of the path, and finds her smiling. She moves her head as if looking around, but keeps her eyes on him. He looks around. The sky is bright. The air is light.
Yes
, he thinks,
it is a nice day for a walk
.

Of its own volition, his elbow sticks out. She takes it. Jeryon spends the next ten minutes wondering how he can get it back.

They drink from the stream. They stop at the shega meadow to look over the ocean toward home, and the wyrmling lands and nuzzles between them to wonder what is so interesting. Everlyn rubs the wyrmling's neck.

“Not even big enough for a child to ride yet,” the poth says.

“Perhaps she'll grow quickly,” he says. “No one sees wyrmlings.”

“It'll be another year, I think. Maybe two.” She takes her hand off the wyrmling.

The wyrmling wonders what she's done wrong. She looks at the poth and Jeryon, but they won't stop staring at the ocean. She drags her head into the brush to look for beetles.

There are no beetles in the brush.

A few moments later Jeryon whistles twice, and they head out again.

They stop at the frog pond, where Jeryon takes another spear from his cache there. The population of black frogs has suffered as much as that of the white crabs. It's quiet. They see no frogs at all, in fact.

Jeryon repeats their plan: He'll lead the blue crabs here, yelling when he's close. When the crabs scatter to chase the frogs, they'll release Gray to attack one, the smallest if possible. They'll follow behind in case she gets in trouble. The woods are dense, so her maneuverability will be hampered, which will make for a better test.

The poth draws her sword in agreement. The wyrmling flicks her tongue and flaps her wings. The sword usually means food. Or bamboo. Food often enough.

They toast with sword and spear, and the wyrmling watches Jeryon leave. She follows. The poth whistles her back. The wyrmling turns her head as if to say,
Why aren't you coming?
The poth whistles again more insistently. The wyrmling's neck droops and she crawls to the poth's side. She puts away her sword.

The mighty vulture is having no fun.

As he walks to the hollow,
Jeryon plans the cabin he wants to build: square, three rooms, a common one in front and two bedrooms behind it, big windows to let in air with shutters to keep out bugs, a peaked roof thatched with palm fronds, maybe a porch. For interior doors they could use dragon-skin drapes. He'd like to elevate the cabin on stilts for better circulation and storage below.

When his father couldn't find fish or he lost his boat or position, he would rent Jeryon to various makers and tradesmen for the coin it could bring in. He most enjoyed building. There was something about transforming lumber into homes and boats that he found fascinating. His only engineering lore, though, came from actually putting things together and asking why they went that way. He sometimes wishes he'd stayed with building.

He'll put the house on the other side of the path to make sure the pond stays pristine and just in case it floods. They could also use the old camp for planting. The poth has been gathering seeds and experimenting with what she can grow in the wicker pots she's woven. He'll have to build a place for those on the porch so she can check on them more easily.

He wonders what it will be like to live in a house of his own. His family never did. They moved from room to room. One year they slept in tents at a dog farm beyond Hanoshi Town. His father let him to the owner, who taught him how to train dogs for the pits—and how to butcher those who failed. Another time, they lived above a stable, where he learned to ride and break horses. The best year they
slept on his father's boat, a real fishing boat for once, not just a dory. Then came the Trust, and it was berth to berth for him. He still had everything he owned in one bag, but he no longer had to worry about where he would sleep. It'll be a shame leaving the cabin, even after a couple years.

The thought surprises him, missing something that doesn't exist yet.

Maybe he should stick with his sleeping panel. A tarp would keep the rain off, and he wouldn't have to stagger down a ladder in the middle of the night when the urge comes. Why would he need a whole cabin to put storage underneath? A few crates would be more useful, and he could move them around. They cook outside and eat outside, so why do they need a common room? How would they keep it lit safely? The poth has been trying to make candles, but he might as well set fire to the place before they do. As for her pots, everything will just go in the ground eventually. So why bother? He could spend his time more profitably by training Gray.

At the rise before the dragon hollow, he readies his spear and looks over the top of the rise. He doesn't see any crabs, nor does he see the telltale bulges moving on the dragon's skin. The bones are more pronounced now that the crabs have eaten away most of the muscle and fat. He flings a rock at the severed neck. There's no response. He throws another, bigger rock at the dragon's side. Nothing. He whistles. He clacks his spear against a tree. He throws a rock into the trees across from the rise to see if they've migrated. Nothing. Far less has motivated the crabs to chase him previously. Have they finally moved on? Jeryon doesn't want to get any closer in case they're lying in wait, so he works his way around and above the hollow.

Jeryon is walking to the frog pond when he hears branches shattering and the poth yelling. Gray bursts through the canopy, circles once, drops something wide and round, and dives, claws outstretched.

He sprints down the path. The crabs were at the pond the whole time. It was an ambush.

5

When he was ten, Jeryon's father took him to a crab boil where a host of Hanoshi fishermen were joined by a fleet of Ynessi who'd worked their way up the coast. They didn't fish the bay, more out of self-preservation than respect, but ill feelings resulted from the encroachment nonetheless, and the boil was called to relieve them. It was held on the wide beach of Ba Isle, whose name came either from the wild sheep that lived there before falling prey to fishermen or from the frequent comment of sailors when passing by it, “Bah, that's hardly an isle.” It could accommodate many boats, making it convenient for the fishermen, and it was far from any guards who might have had a problem if a fight broke out, which many expected and some hoped for.

The Ynessi have a saying, “Every Ynessi has a thousand brothers”: fight one and you fight them all. Plenty of Hanoshi fishermen were willing to show them that the Hanoshi saying “You're on your own” isn't a weakness when a hundred men fight individually for the same thing at the same time, and that thing is their livelihoods.

There were no fights, though, besides the usual argument over whether crabs should be put in the pot or steamed over it. (Both sides agreed to not even broach the issue of spices.) And by midnight everyone was singing songs about their real enemy, those landlubbers up at Ayden. It was such a wonderful boil that ten times the number of people who attended later claimed to have been there. Jeryon remembers only one thing clearly: the enormous tower of cooked crabs that was served. His father stood him against it, having bet a penny that his boy was taller than the tower. He wasn't. His father was furious, but
Jeryon didn't care. He'd never seen so much food in one place. And he could have as much as he wanted.

He recalls this when he gets to the frog pond, spear raised, and sees the stack of rent and ruined blue crabs the wyrmling is building. Many are still alive, clawless, legless, their eyes waggling in desperate attempts to orient themselves. Other crabs have been cleaved in two and three. A few lie shattered where the wyrmling dropped them. Two are stuck in trees. The poth is crab-splattered, glazed with sweat, and showing skin through rents in her smock.

She watches him walk over to one rocking on its back beside the pond. He gores it, picks it up with his spear, and adds it to the pile.

“There,” he says. “That should do it.”

Gray stands for a pat on the head, and Jeryon gives it to her, but he can't stop looking at the poth. She's serene.

Another force gathers around them: birds. When one darts at a crab, the wyrmling chases it off, which lets two more dart at the crabs. One gets an eyestalk. The mighty vulture hisses.

They can't carry all the crabs to camp, so Everlyn suggests a picnic at the cliff with shega for dessert. Jeryon's not sure he deserves shega, having done almost no work, but it's a fine idea otherwise. He weaves a mat of branches that they pile high with the choicest crabs. Gray has no patience for this operation and licks empty half a dozen halves while glaring at the birds. They have to practically drag her away.

The crab meat is tough, but
made more succulent by grilling it with pieces of wild cherry peppers the poth found nearby. Gray prefers the crab raw, and she would prefer even more to return to her pile. More birds gather to feast and call others to join them. “Hey, vulture, we've got your food, vulture,” they say. Each time she sneaks away, though, Jeryon whistles her back, and the crab in his hand is worth two in the bush.

Sitting atop the cliff, they watch the whitecaps and suck on shega
jewels. The big moon watches them from above the Dawn Lands while the little moon tries to catch up.

“It's a double high spring,” he says, “a good sign. Best tide to come in on.”

Gray crawls to the edge and looks at the ocean too. Jeryon whistles to get her attention and waves her aside; she's in his view. She hunkers down and hangs her face over the edge.

“What would the tides be like if there were only one moon?” she asks.

“Boring,” he says. “A high and low tide a day maybe. The world would feel slack.”

She spits a seed into a leaf and sets it aside. “My forest warden said there used to be only one moon,” she says. “Ages and ages ago.”

“How could she know then? And where does a moon just come from?”

“She was told by her warden and her warden was told by hers and so on. She said the moons were sisters who had lost their home and were forced to wander among the stars.”

“More make-believe?” he says.

“You told me about the tides.”

He lays back. “Tell me about the sisters.”

She crosses her legs and draws herself up. “One day they lost each other. The oldest, Ah, searched everywhere for Med. She asked this star and that. She asked the Abyss and the White Bridge that crosses it. She asked the Crab and the Dragon.”

Gray sees something. She bolts upright and flares her wings. She peers off the cliff, neck outstretched, tail slowly rising.

Jeryon says, “I could see asking a single star, but constellations—”