The Dragonbards

Chapter 17

The unliving conquer by changing all memory and naming themselves our saviors. Only the bardsong can destroy their lies, and without dragons, the bardsong is all but gone from Tirror.

*

“The ships,” Kiri cried. “Burn the ships!”

The dragons dropped with their burden of children, and skimmed low over Aquervell’s seaport, driving a wind before them that rocked the tethered boats. They belched out sheets of fire—a ship blazed up, another. Dry decks and masts exploded into flame. Soon the whole harbor was burning. In the pulsing red glare, men dove into the water or ran along the quays, screaming. From the backs of the dragons, the children watched wide-eyed. While the harbor roared and crackled with flame, the dragons rose into the smoky wind and headed for the tip of Aquervell.

The late moon hung behind cloud, the sea black shadows cresting and moving—every shadow might be the barge, they couldn’t see it clearly until they were nearly on it. Seastrider breathed a small flame, and they saw it rocking below them. In the red light, they saw Garit and the children crouched beside the still body of Tebriel. Two rebel soldiers stood guard. The dragons came down on the sea.

Children slid to the deck, the soldiers catching the smallest ones. Seastrider nuzzled at Teb. Kiri slid down, to kneel beside him.

He was unconscious, his face cold and white, smeared with dark bruises. Garit had covered him with a pile of blankets. Kiri looked up at Garit, helpless and afraid. “He hasn’t moved, or spoken?” Garit shook his head. Kiri held Teb’s hands, trying to warm them. What could she do for him? How could she help him?

Desperate, she began to talk to him—maybe the sound of a voice would touch something in him. Maybe a voice could be a lifeline of human warmth, to draw him back. She told him they had gotten the children out, that they now had two new young bards, that the dragons all were safe. She told him how Iceflower had kept the soldiers busy while they carried him out of the castle, how they got the children onto the dragons. She told him that they had burned the harbor. Teb showed no sign that he heard, and Quazelzeg’s words rang cold in her mind. The bard is mine now.

Stricken, she kept talking—it didn’t matter what she said; all that mattered was that she connect with what was alive deep within him. Somewhere within his wounded mind he must hear, something of his spirit must hear her. She paid no attention to the bustle around her as the men set sail. As they sloughed through the surf, she talked about Nightpool, about the otters, about Charkky and Mikk, about how Thakkur and Hanni had been so excited to find each other. The slave children listened, entranced. As the moon dropped below clouds, Kiri could see the children’s faces, hungry for story, hungry for life and warmth. She could feel Seastrider’s smooth summoning of Tebriel, too, as the dragon sought to pull him back from emptiness with silent power. As the barge moved across open sea, Kiri spoke of the magic places, of the sacred sanctuaries, and how men and speaking animals had once found fellowship there. She could see the wonder and longing on the faces of the slave children.

They were nearly past Ekthuma, the night fading. Teb’s eyelids moved. When Kiri felt his cheek, it was warmer. She told him again that they had escaped from Quazelzeg, that the children were safe. Garit poured tea from the crock—he had given the children tea and bread and cheese. Kiri brushed the warm tea across Teb’s lips, and after a long time, when he licked his upper lip, she felt like cheering.

“Lift him, Garit. Help me lift him, to lean against the mast.”

When he was sitting up, she put the mug to his lips.

He swallowed. The cup shook in her hand. Seastrider pushed at him and licked his face. He was alive; he had come back to them.

But there was no recognition in him. He sat staring at them blankly, his body awake but his mind not yet returned. Seastrider nudged and worried at him. Then, frustrated, the white dragon began to sing to him, forming lucid visions of moments she and Teb had shared.

As the raft made its way south toward Dacia, Seastrider’s song took them across the shifting endless skies, buffeted by twisting winds, soaring on thrones of rain and swirling ice. She lifted them above islands of dark clouds humping like the backs of a million giant animals, and over cloud plains white as snowfields. She dodged lightning through crashing black storm, and she sang of silent lands like green jewels, where rivers ran in a tracery of blue.

The slave children drank in the splendid wonders, hugging to themselves hungrily all Seastrider’s wild freedom and fierce love. But Teb sat quiet and pale, staring at his hands, seeming aware of nothing. Seastrider pressed her big white head against him, and Kiri held him close, but he did not respond to them.

When an agitated rustling began in Kiri’s pack, she opened it, and little injured Neeno crawled up out of the darkness, his wings dragging. The tiny owl stood tottering on the leather strap, staring at Teb, his round yellow eyes deep with puzzled concern. “He is very ill.” Neeno blinked, clacked his curved beak in a loud staccato, and shouted with all his remaining strength, “Wake, Tebriel! Ooo, wake!” He peered at Teb. “Do you hear me? Wake!” He cocked his head, looking. “Oooo! Wake, Tebriel! Wake! Wake!” He clattered again, and his angry shout rose to a commanding shriek. “Bring yourself back, Tebriel! Wake up, Tebriel! Wake up!

“DARE you wake, Tebriel? DARE YOU? Are you afraid to wake?”

Teb stirred and looked at Neeno. That angry, clacking shout had brought him back. Perhaps it was like the angry, chittering sound an otter makes; perhaps it made Teb think of Mitta commanding him to get well. He reached to touch Seastrider as she nuzzled him, he touched Kiri’s cheek. He looked at the crowd of children, at Marshy, at Aven and Darba and Garit and the two rebel soldiers.

He frowned at the little owl’s bloody, twisted wings and held out his hand for Neeno to climb on. “What happened? Where are the others?”

Albee and Tybee and Afeena came swooping from the top of the mast and crowded onto Teb’s shoulder.

“Theeka? Keetho?”

“They were killed,” Kiri said. “The jackals . . .”

Teb touched Neeno’s bloody feathers and held the little owl to his cheek, his eyes filled with sorrow. Neeno closed his own eyes and snuggled against Teb.

As they neared the coast of Dacia, Teb told them a little about Quazelzeg’s torture. His cheeks burned with shame that he had been so used. He did not speak of the abyss where his every human need had been a sickness, but Kiri knew, she and the dragons knew. For those terrible hours, they had felt Quazelzeg owning him. Kiri moved within Teb’s encircling arm, and he held her close. The slave children pressed against them in a warm wall of small bodies.

Only Aven stood apart. His rusty brown eyes had changed suddenly and grown dark with excitement.

“What is it?” Kiri said.

“There are four dragonlings in Dacia,” Aven said.

“Yes,” Teb said. A smile twitched the side of his mouth.

“One is blue,” said Aven.

“Yes!” Teb and Kiri cried together. The dragons’ eyes gleamed.

“He has named himself Bluepiper,” Aven said, “after a snowbird from across the western sea.”

Teb laughed out loud—the first time he had laughed—and hugged Aven.

Darba pressed against Aven. “You . . . you have found your dragon.” Excitement filled her dark eyes, but beneath that excitement were shadows of loneliness. Kiri drew the little girl to her. She studied Darba’s heart-shaped face and dark, tangled hair, then dug into a pocket of her tunic and took out her small shell comb.

She combed Darba’s hair as gently as she could, taking her time, working out the tangles, humming to Darba. The questions Aven was asking about Bluepiper, and Teb’s exciting answers, came easier for the little girl when she was stroked and loved. By the time Garit put ashore at Dacia, Aven knew almost everything about Bluepiper and the clutch of young dragons. And Darba’s longing jealousy had eased. Kiri tied the child’s shining hair back with a bit of white leather. “You are lovely, do you know that? Some decent food, and you’ll feel better, too.” She drew Marshy to her, so the three of them stood close.

‘Take Darba to the palace with you, Marshy. Iceflower’s wounds will be all right; she’s bathed them in the sea, and she’s rested. Shell be strong enough for the two of you for that short distance.”

Marshy put a protecting arm around Darba. “Come on,” he said. “Iceflower will take us home.” He gave Darba a leg up onto Iceflower’s back and climbed up behind. As dawn touched the sky over Dacia, Iceflower lifted carefully into the wind and headed for the palace.