“He didn’t.” Leftrin gave him another shake. “He’s not drunk.” But his next actions seemed to belie his statement as he gave Rapskal another shake. “Come out of it, lad. Come back to your own life. There’s a dragon here that needs you, and night is coming on. Storm’s coming in, too. If we’re to get to the other side before it’s dark, we need you to wake up.”
He glanced at Alise and became Captain Leftrin dealing with an emergency.
“Jump down and take his legs when I pass him down,” he commanded, and she obeyed. When had the lad got so tall? she wondered as Leftrin eased the limp Rapskal down into her arms. When she’d first met him, he’d seemed just past boyhood, made younger than his peers by his simplicity. Then he and his dragon had vanished, and all had believed them both dead. Since their return the dragon had proved her competence as a predator, and Rapskal had seemed both older and more ethereal, sometimes a mystical Elderling and sometimes a wondering boy. Like all the keepers, his close contact with his dragon was changing him. His ragged trousers exposed the heavy red scaling on his feet and calves. It reminded Alise of the tough orange skin on a chicken’s legs. And like a bird, he weighed less than she had expected as Leftrin let go of Rapskal and she took his full weight to keep him upright. His eyes were wide open.
“Rapskal?” she said, but he folded laxly over her shoulder.
With a thump and a grunt, Leftrin landed beside her. “Give him to me,” he said gruffly as Heeby pressed her nose against Rapskal’s back, sending Alise staggering back against the statue’s pedestal. “Dragon, stop that!” he commanded Heeby, but as the dragon’s eyes spun swiftly, he added more gently, “I’m trying to help him, Heeby. Give me some space.”
It wasn’t clear she understood him, but she did step back as Leftrin stretched Rapskal out on the cold stone. “Wake up, lad. Come back to us.” He tapped his face with light slaps, then took him by the shoulders, sat him up, and shook him. Rapskal’s head snapped back on his neck, eyes wide, and then, as his head came forward again, life came back to his face. His affable smile, never long absent, blossomed as he looked up at them beatifically. “Dressed for the festival,” he said cheerily. “In a gown made of eel skin dyed pink to match her brow scaling. More delicate than a tiny lizard on an air-blossom, she was, and her lips softer than a rose’s petals.”
“Rapskal!” Leftrin rebuked him severely. “Come back to us now. Here. We are cold and night is coming on, and this city has been dead for Sa knows how long. There is no festival and no woman wearing a gown such as you describe. Come back now!” He seized the youth’s face between his hands and forced the boy to meet his glowering stare.
After a long moment, Rapskal abruptly pulled his knees up to his chest and began to shiver violently. “I’m so cold!” he complained. “We need to get back to the other side and warm ourselves at a fire. Heeby! Heeby, where are you? It’s getting dark! You need to carry us across to the other side!”
At the sound of his voice, the dragon thrust her head into the midst of the huddled group, sending both Leftrin and Alise reeling back. She opened her mouth wide, tasting the air all around Rapskal as he exclaimed, “Of course I’m all right! I’m just cold. Why did we stay here so long? It’s nearly dark.”
“It is dark,” Leftrin retorted gruffly. “And we stayed here so long because you were careless. I can’t believe that you didn’t know better! But for now, we won’t talk about it. We just need to get back to our side of the river.”
The keeper was rapidly coming to his senses. Alise watched him sit up straight and then stagger to his feet, lurching toward his dragon. As soon as he could touch Heeby, they both seemed to calm. The dragon ceased her restless shifting. Rapskal drew a deeper breath and turned toward them. His face had relaxed into its handsome lines. He pushed his dark hair back and spoke almost accusingly. “Poor Heeby will be flying in the dark by the time she makes her third trip. We need to start now.”
Leftrin spoke. “Alise first. Then you. Then me. I want someone on the opposite shore waiting for you. And I don’t want you here alone in the dark, with no one watching you.”
“Watching me?”
“You know what I’m talking about. We’ll discuss it when we’re safe on the other side by a fire.”
Rapskal shot him a wounded look but said only, “Alise goes first, then.”
It was not her first time to ride the dragon, but she thought she would never become accustomed to it. Alise knew that the other dragons did not approve of Heeby allowing mere humans to mount her back and ride her as if she were a beast of burden and dreaded that they might decide to confront her about it. Sintara, the largest female dragon, had been particularly outspoken in that regard. But that concern was the smallest part of the emotions that sent her heart hammering. There was no harness to cling to, not even a piece of twine. “What would you need it for?” Rapskal had asked her incredulously the first time he had asked Heeby to carry her across the river and she had inquired about something to hold on to. “She knows where she’s going. Just sit tight and she’ll get you there.”
Leftrin boosted her up and the dragon crouched considerately, but even so it was a scrabble up the smoothly scaled shoulder. Alise straddled Heeby just in front of where her wings attached to her body. It was not dignified. She had to lean forward and place her hands flat on the sides of the dragon’s neck, since there was nothing to grip. Heeby had learned to fly by running and leaping into the air. It was how Rapskal had thought a dragon would launch, but the other dragons found fault with it, saying that she should simply leap clear of the ground and beat her way into the sky. Nonetheless, every flight began with Heeby’s lolloping run down the hill toward the river. Then came the lurch of the wild leap, the snap as she opened her wings, and then the heavy and uneven beating of her wide leathery wings. Alise was never absolutely certain that Heeby would gain the air, let alone remain there.
But once aloft, the rhythm of her wings steadied. They ventured higher. The cold wind sliced past Alise, burning her cheeks and penetrating her tattered clothing. She leaned close, clasping sleek, scaled, muscular flesh. If she slipped, she would fall into the frigid river and die. No one could save her. Heeby had had a terror of the water since she had been swept helplessly away in the flood. She would never plunge into the icy water after a fallen rider. Alise pushed the disheartening thoughts from her mind. She wouldn’t fall. That was all.
Through squinted eyes she stared at the small lights on the far side of the river and willed herself to be there soon. There were not many lights. The keepers and the ship’s crew had claimed the few cottages and dwellings that could be made habitable and done their best to make them warm and weatherproof. Even so, there were not enough souls there to form even a village.
Leftrin watched the scarlet dragon dwindle in darkness and distance. “Sa watch over her,” he prayed under his breath and then twisted his mouth in wry wonder at himself. He’d never been a praying man before Alise came into his life. Now he caught himself at it every time she insisted on taking chances. Exploring abandoned cities, attempting to hunt, riding on flying dragons. . He shook his head as he watched Alise vanish into the darkness. As much as he feared for her, it was her adventurous nature that had first attracted him. That first time she’d appeared on the docks, in her hat and veil and flouncy skirts, he’d been dumbstruck. Such a fine lady to be chancing herself on the dangerous Rain Wild River and his barge.
Now her hands were roughened and her hair bundled back, and the veils and ribbons long gone. But she was still the fine lady, as elegant as ever, in the same way a fine tool, no matter how battered, retained its integrity. She was one of a kind, his Alise. Tough as wizardwood and fine as lace.
Now he could no longer see her or the dragon. The darkness had swallowed them. He stared anyway, willing that Heeby would make the flight safely, willing that Alise be safe on the other side.
“They’re on the ground,” Rapskal said quietly.
Leftrin turned to him in surprise. “You can see that far?”
Rapskal grinned merrily. His eyes gleamed blue in the dimness. “My dragon told me. She’s on her way back to us already.”
“Of course,” Leftrin replied. He sighed to himself. Sometimes it was easy to forget Rapskal’s bond with the dragon. Easy to forget the boyish side of the young Elderling. Like all growing boys, Rapskal toyed with danger. He had been reckless tonight. Even his dragon had sensed that. He couldn’t be permitted to risk himself like that again.
Leftrin cleared his throat. “What you were doing when we found you? There’s no excuse for that. You’re Rain Wild bred. Don’t tell me you didn’t know the danger. What were you thinking? Do you want to drown yourself in memories? To be lost to us forever?”
Rapskal met his gaze squarely. His eyes gleamed blue in the darkness, as brightly as if he were an old man with years of change on him. His smile grew wider as he admitted cheerfully, “Yes, actually, I do.”
