dying. His boy-prophet, the priest who would have been his soothsayer, was dying, with Kennit's future still unborn. The injustice of it rose up and choked Kennit. He had come so close, so very close to attaining his dream. Now he would lose it all in the death of this half-grown man. It was too bitter to contemplate. He clenched his eyes shut against the cruelty of fate.
'Oh, Kennit!' the ship cried out in a low voice, and he knew that she was feeling his emotions as well as her own. 'Don't let him die!' she begged him. 'Please. You saved him from the serpent and the sea. Cannot you save him now?'
'Quiet!' he commanded her, almost roughly. He had to think. If the boy died now, it would be a denial of all the good luck Kennit had ever mustered. It would be worse than a jinx. Kennit could not allow this to happen.
Unmindful of the gathered crewmen who looked down on the wracked boy in hushed silence, Kennit awkwardly lowered himself to the deck. He looked long at Wintrow's still face. He laid a single forefinger to an unblemished patch of skin on Wintrow's face. He was beardless still and his cheek was soft. It wrung his heart to see the lad's beauty spoiled so. 'Wintrow,' he called softly. 'Lad, it's me. Kennit. You said you'd follow me. Sa sent you to speak for me. Remember? You can't go now, boy. Not when we're so close to our goals.'
He was peripherally aware of the hushed murmur that ran through the watching crewmen. Sympathy, they felt sympathy for him. He felt a flash of irritation that they might construe his speaking so as weakness. But, no, it was not pity they felt. He looked up into their faces, and saw only concern, not just for Wintrow, but for him. They were touched by their captain's regard for this injured boy. He sighed. Well, if Wintrow must die, he would wring what good from it he could. Gently he stroked his cheek. 'Poor lad,' he muttered, just loud enough to be heard. 'So much pain. It would be merciful to let you go, wouldn't it?'
He glanced up at Etta. Tears ran unashamedly down her cheeks. 'Try the water again,' he bade her gently. 'But don't be disappointed. He is in Sa's hands now, you know.'
THE DRAGON TWISTED HIS AWARENESS. WINTROW DID NOT SEE WITH HIS EYES, nor wallow in the sensation of pain. Instead, she bent his awareness in a direction he had never before imagined. What was the pain? Damaged units of his body, breaks in his defenses against the outside world. The barriers needed repairing, the damaged units must be broken down and dispersed. Nothing must get in the way of this task. All his resources should be put to it. His body demanded this of him, and pain was the alarm that sounded through him.
'Wintrow?' Etta's voice penetrated the woolly blackness. 'Here is water.' A moment later he felt an annoying trickling of moisture against his lips. He moved his lips, choking briefly as he tried to evade it. An instant later, he realized his error. This liquid was what his body needed to repair itself. Water, sustenance and absolute rest, free of the dilemmas that encumbered him.
A light pressure on his cheek. From far away, a voice he knew. 'Die if you must, lad. But know that it hurts me. Ah, Wintrow, if you have any love for me at all, reach out and live. Don't forsake the dream that you yourself foretold.'
The words stored themselves in him, to be considered later. He had no time for Kennit just now. The dragon was showing him something, something that was so much of Sa he wondered how it could have been inside himself all this time and remained unseen. The workings of his own body unfolded before him. Air whispered in his lungs, blood flowed through his limbs, and all of it belonged to him. This was not some uncontrollable territory; this was his own body. He could mend it.
He felt himself relax. Unrestricted by tension, the resources of his body now flowed to his injured parts. He knew his needs. After a moment, he found the reluctant muscles of his jaws and his laggard tongue. He moved his mouth. 'Water,' he managed to croak. He lifted a stiffened arm in a faint attempt to shield himself. 'Shade,' he begged. The touch of the sun and wind on his damaged skin was excruciating.
'He spoke!' Etta exulted.
'It was the captain,' someone else declared. 'Called him right back from death.'
'Death himself steps back from Kennit!' declared another.
The rough palm that so gently touched his cheek, and the strong hands that carefully raised his head and held the blessedly cool and dripping cup to his mouth, were Kennit's. 'You are mine, Wintrow,' the pirate declared.
Wintrow drank to that.
I THINK YOU CAN HEAR ME. SHE WHO REMEMBERS TRUMPETED THE WORDS AS she swam in the shadow of the silvery hull. She kept pace with the ship. I smell you. I sense you, but 1 cannot find you. Do you deliberately hide from me7.
She fell silent, straining with every sense after a response. Something, she tasted something in the water, a bitter scent like the stinging toxins from her own glands. It oozed from the ship's hull, if such a thing could be. She seemed to hear voices, voices so distant that she could not make out their words, only that they spoke. It made no sense. The serpent half-feared she was going mad. That would be bitter irony, finally to achieve her freedom and then have madness defeat her.
She shuddered her whole length, releasing a thin stream of toxins. Who are you? she demanded. Where are you? Why do you conceal yourself from me?
She waited for a response. None came. No one spoke to her, but she was convinced that someone listened.
CHAPTER FOUR – Tintaglia's Flight
THE SKY WAS NOT BLUE, OH NO. NOT ONCE SHE HAD TAKEN FLIGHT, FOR compared to her own gleaming self, what could claim to be blue? Tintaglia the dragon arched her back and admired the sunlight glinting silver off her deep blue scales. Beautiful beyond words. Yet, even this wonder could not distract her keen eyes and keener nostrils from what was even more important than her glory.
Food moved in a clearing far below her. A doe, fat with summer graze, ventured too bravely out into a forest clearing. Foolish thing! Once no deer would have moved into the open without first casting a watchful glance above. Had dragons truly been gone so long from the world that the hoofed ones had discarded their wariness of the sky? She would soon teach them better. Tintaglia tucked her wings and plummeted. Only when she was so close that there was no possibility the deer could evade her did she give voice to her hunt. The musical trumpet of her Ki-i-i as she stooped split the morning peace. The clutching talons of her forelegs gathered her kill to her breast as her massive hind legs absorbed the impact of her landing. She rebounded effortlessly into the air, carrying the deer with her. The doe was shocked into stillness. A swift bite to the back of her neck had paralyzed her. Tintaglia carried her prey to a rocky ledge overlooking the wide Rain Wild River Valley. There she lapped the pooling blood of her meal before scissoring off dark red chunks to sate her hunger, flinging back her head to gulp them down. The incredible sensory pleasure of eating nearly overwhelmed her. The taste of the hot bloody meat, the rank smell of the spilled entrails combined with the physical sensation of loading her gut with large pieces of sustenance. She could feel her body renewing itself. Even the sunlight soaking into her scales replenished her.
She had stretched herself out to sleep after her meal when an annoying thought intruded. Before she had made her kill, she had been on her way to do something. She considered the play of sunlight on her closed eyelids. What was it? Ah. The humans. She had intended to rescue the humans. She sighed heavily, sinking deeper into sleep. But it wasn't as if she had promised them, for how could a promise between one such as herself and an insect be considered binding on one's honor?
Still. They had freed her.
But they were probably dead and it was doubtless too late to rescue them anyway. Lazily, she let her mind drift toward them. It was almost annoying to find they were both still alive, though their thoughts were the merest humming of a mosquito now.
She lifted her head with a sigh and then roused herself enough to stand. She'd rescue the male, she compromised with herself. She knew exactly where he was. The female had fallen into water somewhere; she could be anywhere by now.
