The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Robin Hobb
pretended not to understand the broad hints the Council leader dropped until finally Malta cut through his foolishness to say bluntly, ‘They think you can lead them to Kelsingra and that they will find vast treasure there. They seek to persuade you to leave here and go in search of that fabled city. But I, who love all of you, fear that they are merely sending you off to your deaths. You must tell them no.’
But Mercor had not heeded her advice. Instead he had said sadly, ‘Such a journey would be an impossible undertaking. We would starve long before we led you to Kelsingra. Every one of us is willing to undertake such a journey. But there are among us some that are small and weak. We would need hunters to feed them, and attendants to groom us and tend us as the Elderlings used to do. No. I fear it would be impossible. I need not say “no” because “yes” would be meaningless.’
Then despite Malta’s interruptions and pleadings and even her angry shouts, they struck a bargain. The Council would find for them hunters, and attendants who would accompany them and hunt for them and tend them in every way. And in return, all the dragons had to do was lead them to Kelsingra or where it once had been.
‘To this, we can agree,’ Mercor had told them gravely.
‘They are tricking you!’ Malta had objected. ‘They wish only to be rid of you, so that they can dig up Cassarick more easily and be done with feeding you. Dragons, listen to me, please.’
But the deal had been struck. Kalo had pressed his muddy, inky foot to a piece of parchment held up to him, as if such a ridiculous ceremony could bind one dragon, let alone all of them. Malta had gritted her teeth and knotted her fists as the Council proclaimed this was indeed, the best plan. And Sintara had felt a shred of pity for the young Elderling who stood in such firm opposition to what the dragons themselves had manipulated the humans into offering them. She had hoped Mercor would find a way to have a quiet word with her. But either he did not care to do so or he thought it might endanger his plan. When the Council members left, she went with them, still pink-cheeked with fury.
‘This is not final!’ she had warned them. ‘You need the signatures of every Council member to make this legal! Don’t think I’ll stand idly by while you do this!’
The glimpse of Malta had made her sad, and no doubt was responsible for her dreams. She was a young Elderling, a human newly changed into that form. She had years of growing and changing ahead of her, if she were to become all that the Elderlings of old had been.
But she would not. Some of the humans looked at her with wonder, but as many regarded her with disdain. She wondered what would become of Malta and Selden and Reyn now that Tintaglia had abandoned the new Elderlings, just as she had abandoned the other dragons. She did not fault Tintaglia for being gone. It was the dragon way to see first to one’s own needs. She had found a mate and better hunting grounds and eventually she would lay eggs and they would hatch into serpents. The dragon cycle, the true dragon cycle, would begin again as those serpents entered the sea.
But in the years until then, Sintara and the other dragons were all that existed in the Rain Wilds. All of them were creatures from another time, re-born into a world that no longer remembered them. And unfortunately they had returned in dwindled forms that were unfit for this world.
Lords of the Three Realms, they had once called themselves. Sea, land and sky had all belonged to dragons and their kin. No one had been capable of denying anything to them. They had been masters of all.
And now they were masters of nothing, doomed to mud and carrion, and, she did not doubt, a slow death by slog up the river. She closed her eyes again. When the time came, she would go. Not because she was bound by Kalo’s word, but because there was no future in staying here. If she must die as a crippled, broken thing, she would at least take a small measure of life first.
It was not quite dawn when Alise awoke. She doubted that she had been asleep more than a few hours. She opened her eyes at the slight creak of her cabin door opening and held her breath, and only then realized that a soft tap at her door had been what wakened her. ‘Are you awake?’ Captain Leftrin asked quietly.
‘I am now,’ she said and drew the bedcovers up to her chin. Her heart was hammering in her breast. What did the man want, coming to her cabin in the darkness before dawn?
He answered her unspoken question. ‘Sorry to intrude, but I need to get a clean shirt. The local council wants to talk to me, right away. Apparently they’ve been watching and waiting for me to dock. A runner came to the ship late last night with a message. Says they need to finalize the contracts for moving the dragons as soon as possible.’ He shook his head, more to himself than to her. ‘Something’s up. The whole thing smacks of someone trying to beat someone else to a prize. This isn’t like the Council at all. They always like to pretend there’s all the time in the world and keep me tied up bargaining until I have to take their terms or run out of ready cash.’
‘Move the dragons as soon as possible?’ At those words, her mind had frozen. She sat up in his bunk but kept the blankets clutched to her. ‘Where are they moving them so quickly? Why?’
‘I don’t know, ma’am. I expect that when I meet with them, I’ll find out. The word they sent was that they wanted to see me as early as possible. So I have to be on my way.’
‘I’m going with you.’ The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized how forward they sounded. Nothing he had said had even hinted he might welcome her company. And she hadn’t asked if she might accompany him, she’d announced it. Was her new-found ability to make decisions for herself suddenly going to get her into trouble?
But he only said, ‘I thought you might want to. Let me get some things and clear out of the cabin so you can have your privacy. I’ll fry a couple of extra pieces of bread, and set out a coffee mug for you.’ He moved about the cabin as he spoke, taking a shirt from a hook and scooping up the box that held his shaving razor and soap. She could not help but notice that what Sedric had said was true. The shirt was one he’d worn several days ago, and she’d never seen it washed or dried. She found she didn’t care.
As soon as the door closed quietly behind him, she sprang from the bed. Suspecting that her day might involve climbing a lot of steps if not ladders, she dressed in a split skirt and boots as if she were going riding. The blouse she put on was a sensible one of thick cotton. She added a nut-brown jacket of sturdy duck and belted it securely around her waist. There. She might cut a rather mannish figure, but she’d be ready for anything the day handed her. The captain’s small mirror showed her that her days on the river had multiplied and darkened her freckles. And her hair was baked to orange and near as dry as straw despite the sun hats she had been wearing. For a moment, the sheer homeliness of her image daunted her. Then she squared her shoulders and straightened her small mouth. She hadn’t come here to be admired, but to study the dragons. Her fortune was not and never had been in her face. It was her mind that counted. She narrowed her eyes at the mirror, thrust her chin forward, snatched up a plain hat of woven straw and jammed it on her head.
She found Captain Leftrin alone at the galley table. Two steaming mugs of coffee waited there. His back was to her as she entered and he was frying thick slices of yellow bread on the galley stove. A sticky pot of treacle and two heavy earthenware plates awaited the bread. As Leftrin turned to slide a slice of bread onto each plate, he smiled at her. ‘Well, that was quick! It always took my sister half a day to get dressed to do anything. But here you are, all ready to go and pretty as a picture to boot!’
She was shocked to feel a blush rose her cheeks. ‘You are too kind,’ she managed to say, and disliked how formal a response that seemed. She wished that Sedric had not put it in her head that it was inappropriate for her to encourage the captain’s rustic flirting. It is just his manner, she told herself firmly. It’s nothing to do with me, and she took her place at the table.
It seemed they were the only two people astir on the boat. She took a sip of the coffee. It was thick and black and had probably been kept on the ship’s stove all night. There was no cream to tame it with so she followed the sailors’ previous example and generously ladled treacle into it. It tasted like sweet tar then instead of just tar. She trickled threads