He looks warily at us, as if waiting for a snicker or an eye roll.
“I believed them when they said they wanted us to relocate the harpy fledglings,” I point out.
Wilmot nods. “I’m always ready for an ulterior motive, and I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Well, I eventually overheard enough to figure it out,” Trysten says. “But I still pretended to believe their stories. I was afraid of what they might do otherwise. When it came to the dragons…” He shakes his head. “Maybe I’m not as smart as I like to think I am, but I honestly didn’t piece it together until Rowan mentioned the babies.”
“Is this just a hunch, then?” I ask. “Or did you hear something that makes you think Geraint is involved?”
“They’ve been working on something,” he says. “A big project. That’s where the rest of the settlement is. This has been going on for months. Small groups leave and return, and then others leave and return. Lots of whispered conferences and secret meetings. Not everyone in the settlement is in on those. I knew they were stalking a big monster—a very, very lucrative one. I guessed gryphons. We’ve seen young ones flying overhead this year, but they’re already too big to sell.”
My heart clenches. “Young gryphons? Coming down from the north?”
“Yes, from the foothills there. When we started seeing them, Geraint said we should find the lair. Those ones are too big, but if it’s a nursery, they’ll keep raising litters there. I thought they’d been searching for that.”
Tiera’s nursery. Where I left her. That’s a secondary concern, though, because I very strongly suspect that isn’t their target. Not this year.
I glance at Wilmot. “But wouldn’t the juvenile dragons be too big to sell as pets? They’re already hunting. Already bigger than wyverns.”
“While I’m sure there are fools who think a dragon would make a lovely pet, Geraint would aim higher,” Wilmot says. “Much higher. These would be sold to royalty, as symbols of their powers. Or to countries, as machines of war.”
“Machines? But—but they’re…dragons are living creatures.”
“So are soldiers,” he says. “So is every person that a country sends into war.”
For a moment, I’m too dazed to answer. My mother taught me this. While our unique geographic location means Tamarel has never been at war—not since it united—she has explained that war means sending men and women to fight, and we must always remember they are actual people, not pieces on a game board.
That seemed so obvious to me as a child. But now Wilmot suggests countries could use dragons in war, and I’m horrified. Yet how is that worse than using humans? I suppose one could argue that the humans have a choice in the matter, but I’m sure in some countries, they don’t.
Wilmot continues. “A dragon would be worth more than ten gryphons. More than twenty unicorns or wargs. Sell a single young dragon, and Geraint and most of his troop could retire. Sell two, and they’d be rich.”
I’m still struggling to process this when he says, “You only saw two?”
“Y-yes. I mean, there could have been more. I remember reading the old books that said dragon eggs take years to incubate. They speculated that the brood aren’t all born close together, like chickens. Well, they are, relatively speaking—if chicken eggs take twenty days to incubate, and they can hatch days apart, then it makes sense that dragons could hatch months…” I remember those odd rocks I’d seen in the cave. “I think I saw more eggs.”
Wilmot nods. “I’ll wager Geraint has figured that out. If there are only two—or even three—juveniles, there may be unhatched eggs. While he wouldn’t turn down a juvenile, a newly hatched baby would be even better. And if he can get both? Or eliminate the mother?”
“Kill her,” I say.
“Yes,” Trysten says. “If they want a baby monster badly enough—or the parents are particularly dangerous—they kill them to get the young.”
“But a dragon? How would they even…? You haven’t seen her up close. It’s just…not possible.”
“Isn’t it?” Dain says. “If dragons lived here once and are gone, what happened to them? Legend says they were killed off.”
“And driven off,” Alianor murmurs. “Then one returns. Takes a chance on having her babies here, as far from people as she can get. Her babies are still in danger, and they aren’t old enough for her to take across the oceans. She’s stuck here, and she’s mad. She’s really, really mad. And I don’t blame her.”
“I don’t either,” I say.
“So how do we put this right?” Trysten says.
“Calm her down,” I say. “Stop the threat, and hope she calms down. Before she drives all the monsters to Tamarel.” I pause. “Before she loses her babies and goes looking for the humans who took them.”
“Serves them right,” Alianor mutters.
I shake my head. “I saw the look in her eyes. How angry she was. With me. With all humans. I’m afraid if she goes looking for someone to punish, it won’t be Geraint’s troop. They’ll be long gone. She’ll fly to the nearest towns, and those aren’t across the mountains, where Geraint will have taken her babies.”
“Tamarel,” Dain says. “She’ll be furious and looking for humans to punish, and she’ll come to Tamarel.”
Dain, Wilmot and I spend the rest of the morning hunting while Alianor and Trysten gather nuts and berries. That may seem incredibly irresponsible of us. Didn’t we just come up with a possible theory for the monster migrations? Shouldn’t we be trying to stop Geraint’s men?
Yes, but that isn’t going to be a simple matter of walking to their camp and telling them to stop. We need a plan. We also need food. So Wilmot and I hunt as we plan, with the beasts doing their own hunting alongside Dain.
There’s a very good chance that we’re actually gathering food for the walk home. In fact, by the time the sun is high in the sky, Wilmot has decided
