know I’m helping her because I love her.”
“What is going on?” Sedric demanded in a shaky voice.
“Skymaw! Please! Restrain your wrath, beautiful queen! He is only a foolish boy, not even worthy of your anger!” Alise was surprised at how calm her own voice sounded as she deliberately stepped between the incensed dragon and her target. She had closed her fist around the precious scale and as she spoke, she stuffed it into her bag without looking. She kept her eyes on the dragon. Skymaw’s eyes blazed scarlet and copper like a seething kettle of molten ore. Her immense head wove back and forth over them, reminding her of a snake deciding whether or not to strike. How could she have forgotten how huge an animal Skymaw was? One snap of her jaws would sever the boy in two. She spoke over her shoulder to him. “Rapskal. You should leave now. Thymara isn’t here. Thank you for loaning me the scale. I will be certain that it is returned to Heeby after Sedric has finished sketching it.”
“But…” Sedric began.
She pushed her words past him, speaking with all the authority of an older sister. “Rapskal. Go now! If I see Thymara, I’ll tell her you are looking for her. For now, do not bother the lovely, the gracious, the most powerful and awesome Skymaw.”
Perhaps the severity of her tone finally made him realize the danger he was in. “I’ll go,” he said sullenly. He turned on his heel and strode away. But at a safe distance he stopped and flung back at Skymaw, “Heeby is going to fly a long time before you ever get your big blue powerful and gracious arse off the ground, Skymaw! She’ll be a real dragon long before you are, queen stick-up-your-bum!” Then he turned and wisely ran as Skymaw hissed a furious but venomless mist at him.
Somehow, Greft had moved closer to her. He stared at her and she found herself meeting his gaze. There were blue Rain-Wilds lights behind his eyes, just like her own. Something changed in his smile and in his eyes as he said in a quieter voice, “I’d like to help you, Thymara.”
“Oh, I’ll just ask Tats. But thank you for offering.” She turned hastily away from him, uncomfortable with her refusal but certain that accepting his offer would make her even more uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be out here alone with him.
He refused her dismissal of him. “It will make no difference to you or your dragon who helps you,” he pointed out, his voice hardening as he spoke to her back. “I’m here, right now. I’m stronger than Tats. Together, we can get this meat back to the dragons much more swiftly than if you go there, get him, come back here and then start hauling it. It only makes sense that two hunters such as ourselves should help one another. Why do you prefer him to me?”
She didn’t have to answer him. She didn’t want to answer him but the words came out anyway. “Tats and I have been friends for a long time. He used to work for my father sometimes.”
“I see. You feel loyalty to him based on a shared past.” A lecturing note had come into his voice. She didn’t like his smile. It seemed cruel somehow. She didn’t like how he assumed he had the right to talk to her in such a tone, to keep her standing here when she wanted to leave. “You and he had a bond in the past. And you think that bond still binds you. But from what I’ve seen going on, he doesn’t feel the same. This life you are entering into now is not your past, and is nothing like your past. You are moving toward your future, Thymara. Sometimes I think you don’t comprehend your own freedom now.”
He moved a few steps closer to her. “You can break free of everything you’ve always taken for granted. You can put aside rules that bound you and kept you from thinking for yourself, rules that kept you from doing what you wanted, rules that actually kept you from doing what was best for yourself. Tats was someone your father chose, Thymara. I’m sure he’s a very nice fellow in his own way, but he’s not one of us and never will be. It was kind of your father to take him on and give him work after his criminal mother abandoned him. It probably kept him from becoming a thief himself. But all of that is in the past, Thymara. I am sure your father is a good man. But you are under no obligation to continue his kindness to Tats. Surely your family has already done enough for him? If he cannot take care of himself by now, then your putting more effort into him is a waste of your time. You’ve left your old life behind, Thymara, with your father’s blessing.”
He edged closer to her as he spoke. She stepped back.
He halted where he was, considering her. He looked into her face, at the set, flat line of her mouth and her narrowed eyes and turned his head slightly, as if he would cajole her. Then he smiled and shook his head slowly. “Not yet, perhaps, Thymara, but eventually. You’ll see that you and I are more alike than any of the others. I’ll let you take your time to discover that. We have a lot of time ahead of us.”
Then he dropped down on one knee beside her fallen elk and drew his knife. Without asking her permission, he began to work on cutting free a meaty hind quarter. He kept speaking to her as he worked, his voice deep and sometimes deeper with the effort of cutting. Her anger began to build but he didn’t look at her and his words continued, his voice so reasonable. “You’ve struck out on your own, to build something new for yourself. As we all have! You are not established with a home and possessions like your family was. You are making your own way in the world. You are making your own future. You will need, eventually, a partner who can pull his own share. You won’t always be able to waste your time with halfwits and outsiders. You cannot afford to drag dead weight with you into that new future. I know you’re angry now about what I’m telling you. But I don’t have to prove it to you. The Rain Wilds will do that. All I have to do is wait.”
She pushed out her words and they came more forcefully than she intended. “That is my kill and my meat. Get away from it.”
His knife didn’t stop moving. “Thymara, haven’t you heard a word I said? We need to move into the future, not cling to a past that doesn’t apply to us any more. Ask yourself honestly. Why are you so intent on running back to Tats and having him help you with this?”
“I like him. He’s helped me in the past. He’s my friend. If he made a kill like this, he would share it with me.”
He was still sawing away with his knife. She could tell it was dulling on the thick elk hide. He glanced up at her for a moment; there was no anger in his face, only interest. “Would he? Or would he share it with Jerd? Open your eyes. You have a choice here. You could like me. I could help you, a lot more than Tats could, because ultimately you and I are far more alike than you and he could ever be. I could be your friend. I could be more than your friend.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. His voice went deeper and softer on the last words.
Thymara hated how she reacted, how her belly clenched and a shiver went up her back. A handsome, older man had just as much as said that he wanted her. A man, not a boy. A powerful man, one who was assuming a leadership role among the keepers. “Tats is my friend,” she managed to assert. She turned, refusing to see if he would listen to her. “And that is my meat. Stay away from it.” She refused to think about his words, about any of his words. Jerd? Was there something Greft knew about Tats and Jerd that she did not? Push that thought away. Gripping her hunting weapons in one hand, she settled the loop of rope over her shoulder and trudged away from him. He let her go with no further words. She could not move swiftly; she had to push her way through low- growing bushes and dangling branches. She tried to move from hummock to hummock, avoiding the swampiest ground. It wasn’t easy.
After a short time, the rope began to chafe on her shoulder. The meat she dragged seemed to snag on every stump or root tangle she passed and she had to give a strong jerk to break it free. By the time she saw the lighter foliage that indicated she was nearly at the river, she was sweaty, scratched and bitten by insects. She emerged into the swale of tall, coarse rivergrass and pushed on toward where she had left Skymaw sleeping. She’d give her dragon the meat first, and then go find Tats to help her bring the rest back. She smiled to herself, imagining Skymaw’s surprise at a second hearty meal in one day.
But when she spotted her dragon, she wasn’t alone. Skymaw was awake, though she still sprawled comfortably on the deep grass. Seated near her head on a wooden box was the Bingtown woman, dressed in loose trousers and a sensible cotton blouse. Next to her Sedric perched uncomfortably on a wooden crate labelled “salt fish”. His lap-desk was on his knees. Paper and ink bottle were before him; his pen was moving swiftly over the paper. His trimly-fitting jacket was the colour of a bluefly. The white shirt he wore was open at his neck. He’d folded the cuffs of it back over his jacket cuffs, leaving his lean wrists and capable hands free to work. A single line marred his smooth brow. His mouth was pursed slightly, his brows knit in concentration. Alise was apparently dictating the next phrase. Thymara heard “… crushing or severing the spine to kill it quickly.”
As she scented the meat, Skymaw’s head turned and she lunged to her feet. That motion caused both
