Blood of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles #4)

by Robin Hobb

It was strange to watch Davvie and Lecter be so absorbed in each other. In Bingtown, it would have been a scandal for two young men to be so openly passionate about one another. Here, their relationship was accepted by their fellow keepers, much as they accepted that Sedric and Carson were partnered.

Sylve had shot up taller than Alise and her face was beginning to be that of a woman rather than a child, but she had growing still to do, and not just her body. Alise was glad that Harrikin apparently had the patience to wait for her. The girl obviously enjoyed his company, and all spoke of them as a couple, but Alise had seen no indication that he had attempted to gain more than her promise from her. They walked hand in hand sometimes, and she had witnessed a few stolen kisses, but he was not pressing her. For now, he was her true friend, and Alise did not doubt that in time he would win all that he sought.

The space between Tarman and the dock narrowed and still the ship’s unseen legs and tail fought to gain a place alongside the dock and hold there.

Big Eider was personally assisting Malta across the deck and down onto the wobbly dock. She clutched her baby, refusing to surrender him to anyone, while Reyn followed closely behind her, looking anxious.

He felt the familiar thrumming of a liveship’s awareness. Tarman was eldest of the liveships, built long before anyone had any idea that wizardwood was anything other than finely grained and excellent-quality timber. He’d been built as a barge, with the traditional painted eyes for watching the river’s current, but no figurehead such as the other liveships boasted. While his ‘painted’ eyes had become ever more expressive over the years, he had no carved mouth with which to speak. Usually Leftrin shared his ship’s feelings on an intuitive level, or when Tarman intruded directly into his dreams. Only rarely did the captain have the sensation that the ship was speaking to him in actual words. He had always respected however little or much Tarman chose to share with him.

And there, in a familiar gown, her red hair an unruly cascade down her shoulders, was his Alise, taking charge of them. He gave a small groan, longing to be there, to pick her up and hold her against him and smell again her sweet scent.

Do you think all the dragons will refuse us? The right one must be there and must agree. The response was slow and Leftrin sensed that his ship struggled to convey something. He decided to let it go.

He felt no acknowledgement from the ship, and no further touch upon his mind. It was Tarman’s way, and for himself, Leftrin was grateful that his liveship was more taciturn than most. He did not think he could have enjoyed a chatterbox like the Ophelia or a moody and dramatic ship like the Paragon. But there, it was probably like it was for children. Each parent thought his or hers was the best and doubtless every captain would prefer his own liveship to any other. That brought a tiny nudge from Tarman. I am the best. Eldest, wisest, best. Of course you are. I’ve always known that. And again, there was no acknowledgement of Leftrin’s remark. But that was what he’d expected.

He had seemed to be asleep when she had gently lowered his little body into the water. But his eyes had opened at its embrace, and she had been pleased to see him stretch out in the steaming bath and wave his little arms and legs about in it. He had patted the water’s surface and looked first startled and then pleased at the splashes he made. She had smiled to see him behave so much like an ordinary child. But as the coloured scales on his body had flushed and then deepened in hue, she had known a wave of uneasiness. ‘Something is happening to him!’

Malta had smiled up at her. The Bingtown woman had not changed nearly as much as the other members of the expedition. It took a discerning eye to notice the scaling behind her eyebrows and on the backs of her hands.

Malta found she didn’t care and smiled wearily. Look what it had taken to erode girlish vanity, she thought to herself. Merely threaten my son’s life and none of it mattered any more.

She tried to see him impartially; was he an ugly child, doomed to be rejected by other children as he grew? She had found she could not tell. He was Ephron, her little boy, and his differences were part of who he was, not points to be compared with others.

Her skin had dried quickly in the warm chamber, and Alise had supplied her with an Elderling gown of shimmering pink. The gleaming colour reminded Malta of the inside of a conch shell. At another time, she would have longed to see herself in a mirror, to admire the supple fall of the soft fabric.

When they had introduced themselves, several had seemed stunned. ‘The King and the Queen of the Elderlings!’ someone had whispered.

‘Like Greft,’ one of them had exclaimed as he stared at her boy. A taller keeper on the verge of manhood had bade him hush and pulled the scarlet-scaled boy aside.

There was no hearth, Malta noticed with dismay, and almost as if Alise heard her, she said, ‘The rooms stay comfortably warm. We don’t know how. The chairs and the beds soften as you sit on them, and we don’t know how that works either. There is still so much to learn about Kelsingra. There is no bedding either. Perhaps the Elderlings had no need for it when the rooms stayed warm. Some of the closets had clothing in them, and a few of the shelves and cupboards held personal items. Some things were of obvious use, such as brushes and necklaces, and others we didn’t understand at all.

She so wanted to follow him into slumber, but not yet. Not yet. A sad smile twisted her mouth as she recalled how her own mother had always seen to her children’s needs before she allowed herself to rest.

All of them are buzzing with curiosity about why you are here and all you can teach them of Elderling ways. The King and the Queen of the Elderlings. Did you ever think those titles would come to mean so much? For here, they do. I heard the youngsters talking.’

‘They think you’ve come to lead them. To use your power and stature to establish Kelsingra. I heard Rapskal say, “They will call us the Dragon Traders, and we will stand on an even footing with Bingtown or the Pirate Isles or even Jamaillia. They’ll respect us now that our king and queen are here.”’

Every word you speak here carries weight with these young Elderlings. They’ll be gathered around Reyn now, hanging on his every word.

King and Queen. It made her ridiculously sad. The dreams of Malta the girl might come true even as the longings of Phron’s mother were destroyed.

She had never seen such a bony baby. And despite what the keepers said, Malta the Elderling Queen was gone, replaced by a grieving mother with a lined face.

Beauty had fled before life’s harshness. She wondered if it would ever return.

Sylve had been the one to bring it to her, telling her that everyone thought it ridiculous that she went clad in leaking boots and a ragged cloak while they walked in warmth and finery. ‘But … I am not a true Elderling like the rest of you,’ she had said. It was as close as she had come to admitting to anyone how much of an outsider she had become. Sylve had scowled, her scaled brow wrinkling, first in puzzlement and then in annoyance. ‘Rapskal,’ she sighed in disgust. ‘Think of all the peculiar things that boy says, and then tell me why any of them should be taken seriously. Not an Elderling … Oh. I suppose that technically he was right. But only in that you have no dragon to demand ridiculous tasks on a moment’s notice. Not that Sintara would hesitate to do so! But, Alise, please, you have come all this way with us, done so much for us. Without you, do you think we would be here? Would we ever have dared believe this place existed? Look. I chose these for you, the colours will suit you. I’ve seen you wear the Elderling robe that Leftrin gave you, so why not dress as one of us?’ Alise had had no response to that. Not sure if she felt humbled or honoured, she had taken the garments from Sylve’s hands. And worn them the next day.

She remembered how the voice of Malta the Elderling had broken into her dilemma. ‘Alise? Alise Finbok? Is that you?’ She had felt startled and honoured that the Elderlings had seen fit to come to Kelsingra. Until she had seen the woman’s haggard face and skeletal child, and then a very different emotion had filled her.

Most difficult of all was that the keepers would have to learn how to provide for themselves. Sons and daughters of hunters and gatherers, merchants and traders, former residents of a city that had never been able to feed itself, would they adapt to tilling fields and raising kine? And even if they did, were there enough of them to sustain it? The male-to-female ratio was worrisome and had been from the beginning.

but was scarcely three steps up before Leftrin came leaping down to her. Heedless of the treacherous surface, he seized her in a hug that lifted her off her feet. Close by her ear, his unshaven cheek prickling hers, he told her, ‘I have missed you like I’d miss air in my lungs. I can’t leave you again. Just can’t, my lady.’

Perhaps her days in the Elderling city had sensitized her, but she felt Tarman’s welcome of her as a warmth that flowed up from where her feet touched his deck to engulf her whole body. ‘That’s amazing,’ she murmured into Leftrin’s shoulder. She lifted her face slightly to ask him, ‘How do I let him know that it’s mutual?’ ‘Oh, he knows, trust me. He knows it just as I know it.’

Alise turned her head to find Skelly stifling a grin. Her hair gleamed from being freshly brushed, and she had abandoned her trousers and tunic for a flowered skirt and a pale-yellow blouse and looked, Alise thought to herself, more like a girl than she ever had before.

Together they began the slow circuit of Tarman’s deck that always presaged bed and rest for them. Bed. No rest tonight, and a sudden shiver of desire rushed through her. A moment later, Leftrin smiled.

‘This ship keeps none of my secrets from you,’ she laughed, and walked to the next cleat to inspect the lines for herself.

and Reyn strikes me as a man who always speaks less than he knows.’

Who would ever have imagined Malta the Elderling attacked by Chalcedeans in a Rain Wild city? It speaks to me of a duke who is very determined to get what he wants, and Traders corrupt enough to help him in that insanity. Alise, I know you have feared for the city. But the treasure that seems to be sought most at this time is not Elderling artefacts but dragon flesh. The rewards for it must be very high indeed if two men were willing to murder a woman and a newborn child in the hope of passing off their bodies as dragon meat.

And if there is war between humans and dragons, where will the Elderlings stand?’

The shadows of harsh times creep over us. For in a battle between dragons and men, my love, it is not only the Elderlings who must decide where they stand, but you and me as well.’

‘Now is all we really have, isn’t it?’ He tucked her against him, his chin resting on top of her head as if she were an instrument he was preparing to play. ‘Now is enough,’ he murmured. ‘Now is enough for me.’

He still had nightmares about disposing of Redding’s body. Dragging Arich’s body out along the narrow walkways in the dark and rain and eventually shoving him over the edge had been disgusting and unpleasant work. They had heard his falling body crashing through branches but there had been no final sound.

Sitting in the dimness, he could not shake the image of Redding’s ruined face peering back at him from the crook of the tree. The Chalcedean had slashed it repeatedly, cross-hatching it with cuts until his familiar features were eradicated. Redding’s eyes had stared out from the dangling tatters of his once-handsome face.

One day she would not be able to rouse herself and make the immense effort to rise once more to the skies. If that day came before she reached Kelsingra, then she would die. And dragonkind would die with her, her immature eggs never laid. Ever since she had seen the incompetent weaklings that had emerged from the last serpents’ cases, she had known that she was the sole hope of her race.

Other dragons. Other dragons that could fly! Fly, and spit acid fire. Real dragons. Hope blazed up within her and she resumed her course, her will to ignore the pain and live reinforced. Other dragons. Her dreams had steered her true. Other dragons lived and flew in the sky over Kelsingra. A future awaited her.

Enclosed, a transcription of a hand-carried message from Wintrow Vestrit Haven, captain of the liveship Vivacia and Consort to the Pirate Queen Etta Ludluck.

‘Humans are vulnerable to dragons. Of old, we changed some of you deliberately, to better fit you to be companions and servants to our kind. You lived such a short time that it was nearly impossible for us to achieve full communication with a human before it died. And so we allowed and shaped change for those who seemed most fit to live alongside us.

‘So you keepers were when you first came to serve us. Contorted by proximity to the things of dragons, but not on the path to being true Elderlings. But, with a bit of blood to bond you to us, we could shape you to be more pleasing. For there is Silver in dragon blood, and we are most powerful when our blood is rich with it. Deprived of Silver as we have been, each of us yet still has the power to shape an Elderling to our service. So, we have Changed you, made you Elderlings, and if later you attempt to have children, we may shape them as well. But no dragon can change what another dragon has begun, any more than a human can change the aspects of another human’s child. Tintaglia herself might be able to aid your baby, but none of us can.’

‘You were near her at some point. Did you run your hands over the cocooned dragon? Share long thoughts with her, perhaps, breathe the warmth of her breath?’ Reyn spoke quietly, to her rather than the dragon. ‘Selden and I were there when she melted her way out of her case. The air was thick with the stench of dragon; we both breathed it in.’ ‘I was there, too, in that same chamber. And Sa knows I shared thoughts with her during that time. But—’

‘Why do you ask so many questions, Malta Vestrit Khuprus?’ Malta could feel how he tried gently to compel a truthful answer by the use of her full name. ‘You have been touched with Silver in a purposeful way. The smell of that magic is all over you and wakes my thirst for it. Why do you ask questions when it seems to me you must know the answers very well indeed?’ ‘Me? Tintaglia marked me with blue, not silver!’

‘You bear the mark of Silver, on the back of your neck. I can smell it on you still, even though you have worn it for years. Someone touched you, with skill and purpose, and sent you on your way to fulfil a great task.’

‘Whence came the Silver that marks the back of your neck? You must know how great our need for it is! You come to us, asking this favour, but hide from us the source of your Silver that began your change.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about!’ she proclaimed in confusion. But she did know of the faint silvery scaling there, each mark the size of a fingerprint. Never before had she associated it with a dragon. The marks had been there since the day her family had launched the Paragon, long before the fall of Bingtown had sent her fleeing to the Rain Wilds and ultimately to the cocooned dragon’s chamber. No dragon had put them upon her. She held Tintaglia responsible for many things in her life, but not those marks.

‘Find the Silver well for us! She is proof that one still exists, somewhere! In her lifetime, someone has touched Silver and shared that touch with her. If you care for us at all, make this your quest now. For until it is found, no Elderling magic can be done, no dragon can prosper! Find the Silver well for us.’

She and Reyn could do nothing for Ephron except be with him as his little life ended. So that was what they would do. ‘Get up here. Now.’ The Chalcedean barked the order as