Book 4: Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Come along,” Shavala told the mule, which had come to an abrupt halt when it noticed the dragon’s corpse on the far side of the camp. “It’s dead, it can’t hurt you. We’ll get you some oats and then get your leg fixed.”

She managed to convince the limping animal to follow her the last fifty yards to the spot where Bili, a ballista crew member who’d worked as a stablehand back in Four Roads, was caring for the four mules Shavala had brought back earlier, along with half a dozen others that had returned on their own.

“I promised him some oats,” she told the man. “Is Treya awake yet?”

“I dun think so, Miss, uh, Miss Elf,” Bili stammered.

Boktar joined them. “It’s hurt?” he asked, looking over the mule.

“His right foreleg,” Shavala said. “Can Priest Conley do something about it?”

“Conley’s not in any shape for more healing right now.” Boktar felt along the mule’s leg. “Doesn’t seem too bad,” he said. “It can wait until tomorrow if need be.”

“I had to kill one that fell into a ditch,” Shavala admitted. “Two of its legs were broken, and some ribs. It couldn’t stand up and it was in too much pain to just leave it there until Treya could come.”

The stoneborn man blew out his breath. “Well, we lost a ballista and one of the supply wagons, so if we have to, we can get by without as many mules. We need to find as many as we can, though—they can still carry supplies, and we’ll need to salvage whatever we can find from the wagon and spread the load around.”

The mule’s carrying capacity wasn’t why Shavala had been saddened, but she supposed Boktar had to think about that sort of thing. She’d tell Corec or Treya about it instead. They might understand … or at least pretend to. Luckily, with Leena’s warning, there’d been time to unyoke the mule teams. If the animals had been forced to flee in tandem with their yoke mates, more would have died.

“I saw more tracks,” she said. “I’ll go out again later, but some have probably run too far for us to get them back.”

Boktar nodded. “We have to camp here until we find more of them anyway, so I’ll send a few men out in different directions. They might get lucky.”

“Where’s Corec?”

“He’s got a crew looking for rocks to build a cairn for the men who died. We’re too far from Four Roads to get the bodies back home, and he didn’t want to burn them.”

“I’ll go look for him,” Shavala said.

She found Corec in a dry creek bed west of the dragon’s body, digging up wide, flat stones and setting them in a pile. Two knights were doing the same farther down the bed, while three of the armsmen were then carrying the stones closer to the camp.

“I found more of the mules,” she said.

“That’s good.” Corec’s voice was dull.

“You sound tired. You should take a break.”

“I wanted to keep busy,” he said with a glance at the three blanket-covered mounds laid out side by side near the camp. “And I don’t want to just leave them lying there.”

She took him by the hand and led him to the low pile of stones he’d been gathering. He sat down, which brought his head below hers. She wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him.

“Other people can take over,” she said.

He stared off into the distance. “I’m the one who got them killed. The knights knew how dangerous it was, at least from books, but the others had no idea what they were getting into.”

“It was the dragon that killed them,” she reminded him. “Not you.” Half the reason she’d gone searching for the mules on her own was to give herself time for her own mourning, both for the three lost men and for the dragon itself, which had only become aggressive because of some unknown instinctual imperative. Its end had been terrible, dying slowly and in agony as it was stabbed over and over.

As a hunter, Shavala understood death, but at least then it served a purpose. The dorvasta didn’t hunt dragons as food because there was debate between the druids on whether they should be considered thinking creatures, but even among humans, dragon meat wasn’t typically considered to be edible.

“I know, but—”

She tilted her head to the side. “And didn’t you warn everyone it would be dangerous?” Shavala hadn’t been around while Corec had been training the men, but Treya and Ellerie had told her about it.

He didn’t answer, but simply leaned his head against her chest and held her around the waist. That was different—he’d been careful not to show affection in public since she’d rejoined the group. Their friends would understand, but the knights and armsmen were aware of his relationship with Katrin, and he hadn’t wanted to try to explain anything more complicated than that. Humans worried about the strangest things.

Shavala laid a hand on his head and waited until he stood up, letting go of her.

“You’re right,” he said. “Someone else can take over for a while. I could use some rest.”

She accompanied him back toward the camp but paused as they were passing by the dragon. There were cut marks along its scales that hadn’t been there after the battle.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I had to stop some of the men from hacking at it—I didn’t want them hurting themselves. Kevik and Georg cut the teeth out instead, and promised one to each of them so they’d have something to take home. I sawed off the horns, too, in case we need proof the dragon’s dead.”

Shavala wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Hunting trophies for the sake of trophies was wrong, but if the creature had to die anyway, at least those small parts of it could be used. And some traditional dorvasta tools, from the days before metalworking was common, still made use of the horns and teeth of various animals.

She just nodded.

Corec gestured to the dragon. “Would you do what you did back at Tir Yadar?” he asked. “I don’t think we should leave it out here like this. As soon as the locals find out where the body is, some of them will make the trip to see it. They might get sick if they mess around with it.”

He had a good point. The dragon’s corpse would take a long time to decompose, and by the time the armor scales had softened enough for scavengers to get to the meat, the insides were likely to be unfit even for most carrion-eaters. There was no need for a tershaya grove way out here, but the body could be fed to the grasses and plants that were already growing.

“I’ll go get the staff.”

#

It was the heat and humidity that woke Leena, and the familiar smell of the sun beating down on the canvas of an already-warm tent. After the cool, brisk air of early spring in the north, it felt like home. She opened her eyes to realize she was home, lying on a cot in her grandmother’s tent.

Ellerie was sprawled on a pile of cushions nearby. It took Leena a moment to remember what had happened. The dragon had attacked. Her lover had been in danger, and she’d reacted without thinking. She remembered arriving at her family’s camp, but not much after that.

“Elle?” she said.

Ellerie opened her eyes and sat up too quickly to have been asleep. “Hey,” she said, kneeling by the cot and laying her palm across Leena’s brow. “You’re awake.”

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“The dragon …” Leena said. “What happened after we … ?”

“I don’t know,” Ellerie said. “Corec’s alive, but I don’t know anything else.”

Of course. How would she know anything about it if she was here in Sanvar?

Leena did a quick Seeking on each of Corec’s bondmates. She braced herself for the expected twinge of pain for using magic so soon after suffering drain shock, but it never came.

“They’re alive,” she said. “All of them.”

Some of the tension drained from Ellerie’s expression. “They’re safe?” she asked. “I forgot you could look for them. They must have killed the dragon, then, or chased it off.” Then her face fell. “You can’t find Boktar or Ariadne, can you? Or Bobo?”

“No, they’re too far away.” The only reason Leena could find the others was because her Seeking magic could somehow act through the warden bond. “But if everyone else is alive, I’m sure they’re fine.”

Ellerie looked down. “Not everyone. Sir Willem was right there in the dragon’s path. I don’t think he made it.”

Leena hadn’t noticed the knight, having been too concerned about Ellerie’s safety. She propped herself up on the cot and gathered the elven woman into her arms. “Corec and Boktar will watch over them all,” she said. “They’ll have saved as many as they could.”

Ellerie sighed and nodded.

“What happened after I fell asleep?” Leena asked, letting go so she could swing her legs around and sit up at the edge of the cot.

“Your uncle thought Pavan might be able to take me back to where we were, but Pavan wasn’t here in the camp and I couldn’t explain exactly where we’d come from. There wasn’t any way to get back before the fight was over, so I stayed. Your grandmother let me sleep in here.”

“You talked to Pavan?” Leena asked. Ellerie and Pavan had only met once, before Leena had told him the truth about her relationship with the elven woman, but if Leena was going to bear Pavan’s children, he and Ellerie would have to get to know each other at some point.

Ellerie shrugged uncomfortably. “No. Since I couldn’t get back to the fight in time to help, I decided to wait and see how you were feeling. Do you think you’ll be able to take me back? I don’t want you to pass out again.”

Leena considered it. “I was already tired yesterday—was it yesterday? I’d searched for the dragon a dozen times that morning, and Seeking always takes more out of me than Traveling. Let’s give it a few hours and see.” She’d just done five more Seekings, though checking on Razai and Katrin probably hadn’t been necessary. She’d need time to recover before trying to Travel again.

“I didn’t know you’d gotten to the point where you could take other people with you.”

“Neither did I, but Rohav’s been trying to train me on it whenever I get a chance to visit.” Leena hadn’t admitted that to Ellerie before. After her failures the first time she’d entered training, she hadn’t wanted to mention it until she’d mastered the skill.

Ellerie nodded. “I know you said you’d be able to do it someday, but I didn’t really think through what that meant. Yesterday we were in the free lands, and now we’re thousands of miles away. I’ve never been to Sanvar before. I’ve never even been south of Terevas. Everything’s so different here—the food, the clothing, everyone living in tents.”

“We’re in a Zidari migratory camp,” Leena pointed out. “If you went into Matihar or Sanvara City, it would be more like what you’re used to. I lived in town before I went north, but all the Zidari families maintain their ancestral camps. We use tents so we can move back and forth between the wet-season and dry-season camps, to make sure the goats and sheep have enough to graze on. We’ll be going to the wet-season camp soon—it’s more sheltered from the rain.”

“Oh,” Ellerie said. “Still, it seems like this is a big step. If I wanted to visit my mother in Terevas, you could take me there, couldn’t you?”

“It might take a few tries—I haven’t mastered Traveling to a place I’ve never been before—but yes, I could.”

Ellerie nodded, then hesitated. “Corec has been reluctant to ask you to do more than you’re already doing,” she said. “So have I. When we first met, you were desperate to protect your brother and you’d have agreed to anything. But that wouldn’t have been fair, so we tried not to ask more than we had to. Now, though …”

Leena brushed a stray strand of silver hair out of the elven woman’s face. “I’ll always want to protect my brother, but I stayed with you and your friends because I wanted to, not because I had to. I’ve liked traveling around with you, and things are different now. I’m stronger. We know who our enemies are. We’ve got a plan to draw them out.”

Ellerie nodded. “If you can take people with you, there’s so much more we could do. Shavala and I want to go back to Tir Yadar, Katrin wants to go to Circle Bay, Sarette and Ariadne want to go to the Storm Heights. The biggest problem with Corec’s idea to settle down in the free lands was how far away we’ll be from everything else, but that won’t matter if you’re willing to help.”

Leena understood what Ellerie was really asking. Other than Ellerie and Razai, Leena had always kept some distance between herself and the rest of the group, not allowing any close relationships. She had her own life separate from them, and even when Corec had suggested sticking together until they’d dealt with the snake cult, she’d viewed it as a temporary situation.

But things had changed.

“I’d love to,” she said with a small smile. She was skilled enough now that it was time for her to offer her service to the empire, but as a Traveler, that wouldn’t be a problem. She could make her home in the north and split her growing strength between her duty to her people and the shared responsibilities she and her friends had taken on.

There was a rustle of canvas as Leena’s grandmother pushed the tent flap out of the way and stepped inside. Udit followed her in, giving Ellerie a distrustful stare.

Leena smiled and stood up to greet her family.

#

The finished cairn wasn’t much to look at, consisting of a four-foot-tall mound of rocks over the three graves, but its purpose was obvious. No one was likely to disturb it, and the heavier stones at the base would make that difficult.

“It’ll do,” Kevik said.

“I’ll come back later with a marker for the spot,” Corec told him. A bronze plaque wouldn’t cost much, and would allow the men’s families to find the right place if they ever came looking.

Kevik nodded but didn’t reply. The knights had been in a dark mood since Willem’s death.

Priest Conley and the other knights joined them. “I should say some words for them,” the priest said.

Corec took the opportunity to slip away from the group. If they were going to offer prayers to Pallisur, he wanted no part of it. He nodded a farewall as he left. It was Sir Georg, of all people, who acknowledged his departure, giving a brief but respectful nod in return.

The rest of the expedition was slowly reassembling as they prepared to continue on their way. The dragon was dead, but the group still needed to travel the last twenty miles to the keep to make sure there were no hatchlings. If they allowed any young dragons to live, the creatures would grow quickly and soon overrun the area.

Leena and Ellerie hadn’t returned yet, but both still appeared to Corec’s warden senses. The direction they were in felt similar to the location of Leena’s bond when she visited her family, but Corec had sent a group south anyway, just in case they were nearby but injured. The men had returned empty-handed, so now all Corec could do was wait and hope the two women were able to come back on their own.

He tracked down Boktar, who was checking each of the ballista carts to make sure they hadn’t been damaged during the fighting.

“We found the men who ran,” Boktar told him. “Two came back when they realized they didn’t have any supplies, and Shavala found the others while she was tracking down more mules this morning. What should we do with them?”

Rolf, the man who’d fled from Nedley’s squad during the attack, hadn’t been the only deserter. They’d also lost a member of Cenric’s squad, as well as the two men assigned to Catapult Four, which hadn’t even been involved in the fighting.

Corec sighed—he’d hoped the deserters would flee the area so he wouldn’t have to deal with them himself. “I don’t know,” he said. “How can I judge someone for running from that fight?” Standing in the middle of a burning fire wasn’t something he was interested in repeating, Treya’s protection spell or not. Could he really blame someone for breaking under that sort of pressure?

“We can’t just let it go. The ones who stayed won’t accept it, not with three men dead.”

Corec grimaced at that. As much as he would like to blame the deserters for the fates of the men who’d died, it wasn’t their fault—the deaths had happened too quickly for anyone to react. Sir Willem and Nale, a ballista crew member from Four Roads, had died in the dragon’s initial attack. The third dead man was Wifric, a hillfolk mercenary in Cenric’s squad who’d been hit in the head by the dragon’s tail and died before he could be healed.

If anyone was at fault, it was Corec himself for not adequately preparing the armsmen for what they’d be facing. Dry facts listed in a book simply couldn’t match the reality of facing a dragon in person, but that excuse wouldn’t be any consolation for the families of the three men who’d been lost.

“No bonus,” he said. “They volunteered to come with us, so they get full pay for the trip out, but they don’t get the bonus for killing the dragon. For the rest of the trip, demote them to drivers and cooks. One silver per day.” Once Corec was sure the keep was clear of any other dangers, the pay for the other armsmen would drop from five silver per day to two, but he couldn’t trust the four deserters as armsmen any longer.

“That doesn’t seem like much of a punishment.”

“That’s not their punishment,” Corec said. “The rest of the men are going to return home as heroes, and every single one of them is going to talk. It won’t be long before the whole town knows what happened.” He couldn’t—and wouldn’t—help the deserters save their reputations, but he wasn’t going to cheat them out of the pay they’d rightfully earned. “And leave their names off the recruitment list.”

Boktar nodded. “I suppose that’ll work. I’ll mention it to anyone who complains.”

“How long until we’re ready to go?”

“Two hours, maybe three. We’ll have to leave Catapult Four behind. It wasn’t doing much good anyway, and I need that wagon if we’re going to bring the rest of our supplies.”

The dragon had crushed the side of one of the large freight wagons, destroying most of the crossbows, half a dozen wooden pike shafts, and two barrels of flour, but much of the food stored on the wagon had been salvageable.

Catapult Four was the only modern-day catapult the expedition had brought, which meant it couldn’t be repositioned the way the three shrinking versions from Tir Yadar could. Corec had only ended up bringing it along because it was available, but it wouldn’t be any great loss, especially without its crew.

“That’s fine,” he said. “We have enough mules for everything else?”

“We lost four, but without the freight wagon or Ballista Two, we won’t need them.”

Corec nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

“If you can get a group together to unbolt Catapult Four from the wagon, I’ll work on rearranging the supplies.”