Those three don’t care anything about any dragons but their own.”
Sylve lifted the front edge of her tunic to dab at her messy face. She spoke from its shelter. “How is that different from us? We’re only talking about feeding our own dragons.”
“But that was the deal!” Thymara almost exploded. “That was the agreement that each of us signed. Each of us said we’d be responsible for a dragon. And here we are, we each have two to worry about. Without some ignorant louts coming in and poaching our hard-earned meat. Well, they’re not going to get away with it!’ As she’d spoken, Thymara had slid her arms into the makeshift harness that Tats had created. She had the front end of the carcass with the ribcage. Tats had taken the heavy hindquarter for himself. Without saying a word, they’d agreed that little Sylve could drag the head and neck back. It was lighter than what they were hauling, but still not an easy load to get back to the river through all the brush and swamp.
“Actually, I think it’s likely they will.” Tats spoke as he leaned into his load and followed her. Sylve came last of all, getting the advantage of the broken trail through the brush.
“Will what?”
“Will get away with it. What we were just talking about. Greft and Kase and Boxter will get away with taking your meat.”
“No they won’t! Not when I tell everyone!”
“By the time we get back, they will have told everyone the story their way. And it will seem to everyone who didn’t get a kill for their dragon today that it would only be sensible for you to share with everyone.” He added something else in a softer voice.
“What?” she demanded, halting to look back at him.
“I said,” he said defiantly, his ears turning a bit pink, “that in some ways it would be only sensible.”
“What? What are you saying? That I should do all the work of hunting and making a kill, and then just give it away to everyone else?”
“Keep pulling. Night’s coming on. Yes, that is what I’m saying. Because you’re a good hunter, probably the best we have. If you were free to hunt, and everyone else had to do the butchering and hauling the meat, you’d be able to get a lot more prey. And all the dragons would have a better chance of a real meal.”
“But Skymaw would get less! A lot less. She should have had almost half an elk today. Your way, she’d get one fifteenth. She’d starve on that!”
“She’d get one fifteenth of what everyone caught. I think you may be our best hunter, but you’re not our only one. Think about it, Thymara. There is you, and the three professional hunters, and some of the rest of us are not too bad at fishing and small game. Each dragon would be almost certain of getting at least something to eat every night.”
She was sweating now as she dragged the meat through the forest. It was getting dark, and the mosquitoes and gnats had found her. She swiped angrily at her brow and then slapped the back of her neck, crushing half a dozen of the persistent blood-suckers. “I can’t believe you’re taking Greft’s side,” she observed bitterly.
“I’m not. I’m taking my side. Basically, it’s the deal you were ready to offer me, only expanded to include everyone.”
She went on silently pulling her load, pushing her way past leaning branches and gritting her teeth every time she missed her footing and plunged ankle deep in muck. She was stingingly aware that Sylve could hear every word. She couldn’t just say to Tats that it was different, that he was her friend and her ally and she didn’t mind sharing with him. Not that she minded sharing with Sylve tonight; the girl had done her best to take care of the injured silver dragon. In a way, Thymara supposed that she was her partner now, since they’d both agreed to do what they could for the creature. In another moment, she became uncomfortably aware that she knew Sylve had only the smallest chance of keeping even one dragon alive, let alone volunteering to help with the silver, too. Maybe she owed the girl her help. She didn’t like the way that idea jabbed her. She didn’t want anyone depending on her, let alone have someone that she owed help to. And what about Rapskal? If he asked her for meat for his runty little Heeby, would she say no? He partnered with her every day in her boat, and always did at least half the work there. So what did she owe him? Tats spoke at just the wrong moment.
“You want me to take the lead for a while?”
“No,” she replied curtly. No, she didn’t want anyone doing anything for her. Because who knew what she would owe them then?
He should have known better than to say anything more. But a few moments later, he asked in a low voice, “So, what are you going to do when we get back to camp?”
She’d been pondering that question herself. Having him poke her with it didn’t help her indecision. “What if I did nothing? Would that make me a coward?”
He was quiet for a time. She slapped mosquitoes on the back of her neck and brushed her hands wildly over her ears, trying to drive them and their persistent buzzing away. “I think you’d be doing the sensible thing,” he said quietly.
It surprised Thymara when Sylve spoke. “He’ll make you look selfish if you say anything. Turn everyone against you. Like he did with Tats, that night. Saying he wasn’t one of us.” The girl was huffing and puffing. Her words came in short bursts. Thymara was rapidly realizing that Sylve was not the little girl she had thought she was. She was younger, but she listened and she thought about what she heard. “Ouch! Stupid branch!” she complained abruptly and then went on, “Greft is like that. He can seem so nice, but there’s a mean part of him. He talks like he wants good things for everyone. Changes, he says. But then he has those other times. And you see that he has a mean part of him. He scares me. He talked to me once, for a long time, and, well, sometimes I think that if I stay away from him, that’s the safest thing to do. Other times I think that if I don’t find a way to be one of his friends, that will be the most dangerous thing.”
Silence fell except for their breathing, the sounds of their loads bumping and dragging and the normal night sounds of the forest. Insects buzzed all around Thymara’s head, almost as maddening as the thoughts buzzing inside her head. Thymara wondered just what Greft had said to Sylve in their “talk”. She feared she knew, and felt fresh outrage. Tats broke their mutual reverie. “I’m scared of him for the same reasons. And one other. He has plans. He’s not just a fellow taking on a bad job for money or because it looks like an adventure. He’s thinking something about all this.”
Thymara nodded. “He says he wants to make a place where he can change the rules.”
For a time, they plodded on in silence, each pondering this. At last Tats said softly, “Rules exist for a reason.”
“We don’t have any rules,” Sylve injected.
“Of course we do!” Thymara objected.
“No, we don’t. Back home, there were our parents. And the Rain Wild Council, and the Traders, each with a vote to say what got done or didn’t happen. But we left all that behind. We signed contracts, but who is really in charge? Not Captain Leftrin. He’s only in charge of the boat, not us or the dragons. So who says what the rules are? Who enforces them?”
“The rules are what they’ve always been,” Thymara replied doggedly, but she had an uneasy feeling that the girl was seeing things more clearly than she was. When Greft spoke of making changes, what could he be talking about except changing the rules they’d accepted all their lives? But he couldn’t do that. Could he?
There was light breaking through the trees ahead of them, the fading evening light of the Rain Wilds forest. Somehow her legs found the strength to pick up their pace.
“Hey! Hey! Where have you been? I was starting to get worried about you all! The hunters came in, and brought a whole load of riverpigs. You should see, Thymara! There’s a whole one cooking on a spit for all to share and the dragons got half a pig each. Hey! What you dragging? Did you kill something?”
It was Rapskal, jumping and hopping as if he were a boy half his age. He stopped dead when he reached Thymara, staring at the meat she was dragging. “What was that thing?”
“An elk,” she replied shortly.
“An elk. That’s big! You were lucky, I guess. Greft got one, too. He said he brought the meat back to share with everyone, but it was all dirty and beat up and then the hunters brought the riverpig and started building a big fire, so Greft’s elk got fed to one of the dragons. Oh, you should come and see Heeby! He ate so much today, he looks like a stomach with a dragon wrapped around it. He snores when he’s full. You got to hear him to believe it!” Rapskal laughed joyously. He clapped Thymara on the shoulder. “Glad you’re back, because I’m starving. I didn’t want to eat until I found you and made sure you got a share, too!”
