Dragon's Run Page 19

  Drosa pulled Ishe’s hand to her chest and smiled down, showing her blunt teeth. “Welcome back.” Her hair shone with a brightness that bordered on painful, but Ishe found that Drosa’s eyes held an expression for which she would endure any sort of glare in order to behold. Ishe had never seen its like before, not directed at her.

  A smile grew on Ishe’s face. “Morning, glory.”

  Drosa’s smile turned sheepish. “Not morning.”

  “Better get a move on if you want to catch the trade ship to the Golden Hills,” Unyet said. “Lookouts should spot it anytime now.”

  Ishe sat up so fast that Drosa jerked back to avoid being hit. The room had shifted since she had bedded down. The cot she lay on stood dead center in the room, directly under the sun crystal set in the ceiling. The scent of sweat and sickness greeted her nostrils as she looked down her naked body. A healing crystal the size of her fist nestled between her breasts, secured there by a harness that looped woven twine around her neck and back. Unyet’s forge sat dark, his tools pushed to the side of the room. He himself sat in the corner, leafy hair shining as he puffed on a long pipe.

  On the ground were stacks of wooden bowls with spoons.

  Time. Time had passed since she had closed her eyes.

  “How long has it been, Drosa?” Ishe asked, staring at those bowls.

  A long two-handed squeeze. “Needed time to burn Grief’s taint out. Eyah says still not gone, hiding in bones. Too many days in darkness and it come back.”

  “How long, Drosa?” Ishe did not bother to keep the rising anger from her voice and tried to free her hand. Yet Drosa hung on to her hand and had a stubborn set to her jaw as Ishe turned to glare at her.

  “Three days.” Drosa did not look away. “You needed every minute.”

  “Did you drug me?” Ishe’s voice came out strangled.

  “Girls!” Unyet barked in rebuke. “She did precisely as our healers recommended. They’ve had their hands full with your friend Hawk. You didn’t need much more than a sleeping tea. You were exhausted. Drosa is the only one of your crew that hasn’t spent the last three days in bed.”

  “I didn’t have three days to spend!” Ishe swung her legs over the edge of the cot. “I have to get to the Golden Hills.”

  Drosa swung in front of Ishe, blocking her way, “You needed days of sun! That’s here.” She pointed at the sunstone. “Needed to recover or you be nothing but black goo and white bone. No good to your sister or me!”

  Ishe opened her mouth to argue, but Drosa threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Ishe’s neck. Ishe’s arms flapped as Drosa kissed her with the same intensity as the sun crystal’s light. After a mere second of resistance, Ishe’s arms closed around Drosa’s slender body. Touch flooded in, the sensation of Drosa’s leathers beneath her fingers. They itched to do more, to explore, to make Drosa shiver. Only Unyet’s gaze stopped them from doing just that.

  Drosa released Ishe’s lips and let herself rest on Ishe’s shoulder. “Can’t see world with you if you are bound to river and blackness.” Drosa pushed herself up so she could look Ishe in the eyes. “We good pairing. Eyah and I light to your shadow. Help your sis. But if you be stupid and mad because we care, we leave.”

  No space for negotiation appeared in those eyes of hers. Another wall the Rhino couldn’t breach. Ishe let her head fall forward, and their foreheads touched. “We’ve sailed far from where we met.”

  “You think of that when I kiss you?” Drosa cocked her head to the side; her neck still bore traces of a bruise where Ishe had choked her.

  Ishe smirked. “More right before. My mind goes completely elsewhere when you kiss me.”

  “Good. Remind you that I bite if you make me mad.”

  “Didn’t work out so well for you that time.” Ishe squeezed her a little harder.

  “Next time, I be angry from long range. Close range, we do this,” Drosa said, closing in.

  This time, their lips met in the middle, and they held it until Unyet had a fit of not-so-polite coughing. They separated with unrepentant smiles. “Why don’t we get you some clothing, Ishe, and then see if we can find you both a private bunk on this ship coming in,” he said.

  Ishe gave a heavy sigh. Clothes meant stepping outside. And outside meant the first thing she needed to do was go see Hawk.

  Getting to Starry Night’s dwelling reminded Ishe of climbing up to the crow’s nest on Fox Fire. The wind rippling through the clothing Unyet had provided, a simple pair of rough-spun black breeches and a blue shirt, giving Ishe a queasy, homesick feeling. It was Catter who offered a hand to pull her up into the house; if what the High Tree tribe lived in could be called a house at all. Inside it was a large spherical dwelling with ledges jutting out from the walls to create platforms around a central vine that appeared to be halfway between a ladder and a stairway. Each of the nearly dozen or so platforms appeared to set up to be a room. Curtains occluded the three uppermost platforms. Curious eyes of children and adults peered over the edges. The air hung with the awkward silence of a space unused to it.

  Starry Night stepped from one of the curtained rooms and waved a greeting. “Ishe, I bid you welcome. Come up now, quickly; we must talk.”

  Drosa had just come up behind her, and with the three of them gathered around the entry hole, the space was becoming crowded. With a nod to her and Catter, Ishe started to ascend. The vine had wide handholds, but her limbs still burned from the amount of climbing she’d already done to get there. About half the platforms seemed dedicated to storage, bags of Golden Hills foodstuffs lying among crates and jugs. The largest platform, in the middle of the dwelling was a kitchen, a slab of stone isolating a red cooking crystal from the wooden cabinets and sink. The furnishings mostly consisted of colorful pillows of various shapes and sizes. Other platforms sported growths of wood that looked to be in the process of being shaped into furniture by an array of ropes and braces. Opposite the kitchen sat what might eventually be a dining room if the strapped lumps became more chair-like.

  The sickly-sweet smell of decay greeted Ishe as she parted the curtain that Starry Night had disappeared within. A glowstone illuminated Hawk’s massive frame sprawled on a mat on the floor. Her entire body was swathed in linen bandages that grew dark where the stumps terminated. A healing crystal the size of Ishe’s forearm hung over her, suspended by a pulley that allowed the healers to control its height. A familiar cough drew Ishe’s attention to the figure holding Hawk’s one good hand in his lap.

  “So, it’s time.” Sparrow regarded Ishe with eyes sunken far back into their sockets. Worry and grief had consumed any sleep he might have gotten. He coughed into the back of his hand.

  “It’s pretty close. My host says that an airship will be here soon.” Ishe swallowed and let her eyes fall to Hawk. The chest rose and fell steadily. “We have to be on it, Sparrow. Can she travel?” Ishe asked, dreading the answer.

  “No. The burns are too deep; she still has weeks of skin grafts ahead. The medical crystals are barely keeping her together.” Sparrow looked down at the hand that consumed most of his lap.

  “Liar,” Hawk wheezed out, the single word consuming an entire breath.

  Sparrow’s eyes closed. “Please, my love. Don’t.” They opened and stared hard at Ishe. “She’s going to ask you to kill her. I ask you not to listen.”

  A single breathy Ha emanated from Hawk. Ishe walked around the mat to the side opposite Sparrow. Hawk’s head rotated toward her, something crackling beneath the bandages as she moved. Her flinty eyes peeped out between slits of cloth.

  Ishe stared at her for a moment, trying not to look at the stumps of her limbs. Finally, thinking of nothing else clever or encouraging, she simply said, “Thank you, Hawk. You saved us all.”

  “My fate has always been to die in futile battle.” She sucked in a huge breath. “It finally caught me.”

  “It wasn’t futile, and you’re going to survive, Hawk,” Ishe said firmly.

  “What is life w
ithout legs to run on? What is the purpose of a cripple as the Age shifts?” A cough, guttural and deep, wracked her body. She spat. A dark stain spread from the corner of her mouth over the white bandage.

  “Hawk, that’s enough. Stop straining yourself,” Sparrow said before succumbing to a fit of his own, this one long and hard. Ishe thought he might cough out a piece of his own lung as he clutched at his chest. It finally passed and he slumped back against his chair, gulping air.

  “Take him with you.” Hawk broke the silence in the wake of the fit. “Get him to the sky. Do not let him die waiting for me.”

  Sparrow’s eyes narrowed in such a way that Ishe saw this was not a new argument. “My lungs will hold”—he stifled a cough—“ahem—will hold long enough for you, my love.”

  Ishe did need to be a healer to see that lie. Yes, it had only been perhaps three weeks since Yaz’noth had destroyed Fox Fire, but Sparrow had spent a week beneath a mountain and had nearly drowned. “Okay, Hawk. I’ll get us a ship. Once you’re better, you come and find us. Promise me that.”

  The Ha that came from the giant woman was bitter.

  “Promise me, Hawk.” Ishe borrowed her mother’s sharpness and found her voice had iron in it.

  Hawk made a noise that fell between a moan and a growl. “Should the All ever grant me the strength to leave this bed, I will find my Sparrow.” Her head turned toward him and her tone softened. “Should I have to drag myself one-handed over a mountain of sharp stone, I will find you, my love,” she said in the tongue of Low River.

  Angry eyes stared at Ishe from across Hawk’s body. “And I”—cough—“get no say in this?”

  Ishe held her once-again-flesh-covered arms toward him. “I got drugged to sleep for the last three days on the word of a woman I’ve kissed once. You’ve been married for ten years. Do the math.” She grinned and got a tiny smile in reply before he turned to wipe his eyes.

  “If I have to live, then so do you,” Hawk whispered.

  Sparrow sighed, conceding the point. “Give us a moment, Ishe.”

  Ishe nodded and left the room to give the pair their privacy.

  “Ishe!” Drosa gestured excitedly from the dwelling’s top entrance. “We can see ship!”

  A grin split Ishe’s face as she scrambled up. In a few seconds, she stood on the top of Starry Night’s dwelling and peered out between the tree’s massive branches at what looked to be a dark nut nestled between two billowing clouds: a cargo ship with all its sails deployed. A fat mark in a life that seemed more distant by the hour. Whatever its route, she’d have to convince the captain they needed to go straight back to the Golden Hills. One way or another.

  “Crrrck!” sounded above her, and Ishe looked up, only to see Blinky leap off a web-covered branch with a happy screee! and stagger her with his bulk.

  “Augh!” Ishe grunted as she failed to fend off the spider’s “kisses.” A shrill giggle wound its way from her throat as she vainly attempted to pry the fuzzy spider off her, but he squeezed himself tightly to her chest and refused to budge, making happy clicks.

  Off to the side, Drosa sheathed her dagger and stood well away, the pallor of her skin a little green.

  “Aww, don’t be jealous that he likes me more than you now.” Ishe grinned at Drosa.

  Drosa took a deep breath. “Did not even see him there.”

  Ishe slapped herself a few times to trying to ward off the numbness that had begun to creep across it. “Don’t feel bad. Blinky can sneak up on death itself if he needs to.” She began to scratch at Blinky’s joints and slathered him with rumbled praise. Churring, he started to loosen his legs.

  “He’s mostly soft…” Ishe stopped talking when she saw Drosa’s horrified expression. Turning, Ishe followed her gaze and in a moment found the lumpy shape of Hammer soaring toward the cargo ship.

  A long, low horn began to sound.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Spine is rich in metals, but mountains require blood in exchange for their innards. Whether it is given freely or taken, the toll is paid.

  Boots, Storywalker

  Guro, had let it slip to Ishe that Yaz’noth’s valley was a half-day sail from the Golden Hills. That close to a safe and heavily armed harbor must have led to sloppy vigilance. The cargo ship either hadn’t seen Hammer until it was too late or hadn’t bothered to pack a cannon. Its sails were burning by the time Ishe and Drosa had made it to the docking platform, a skeletal structure anchored to a three-by-three grid of treetops, the center a web of spider-silk cables and pulleys. A battery of four mammoth cannons made sure that the structure would get a salvo or two off before the dock drowned under a rain of fire crystals. Already, a gunnery crew was frantically aiming the artillery at the doomed cargo ship. Ishe didn’t need to see the cannon’s specs to know they were far out of range. Only the longest of the cannons that guarded the walls of the Golden Hills could hope to sling a shell that far.

  Not to mention a juvenile dragon would see it coming for a literal mile.

  Unyet stood on the deck as Ishe climbed up to the dock, Drosa and the others on her heels. He peered at the burning boat through a spy glass as long as his arm. The glass was offered to Ishe without a word. Through it she could see Hammer’s bronze scales catch the high sun as he raked the ship with plumes of fire. Only the flashes of hand cannons answered his attacks from the deck. Ishe knew firsthand how well those affected Hammer, if they even hit him.

  She handed the looking glass back to the crystal-touched man. “Do you have any airships at all? Even a small dinghy?”

  “Nothing but a few float barges right now,” he said, mouth falling into a scowl as if he were litigating an old argument. He gestured, and there below the tree line were several floating platforms, their surface crowded with huge barrels. Men and women stood around the edges, hoses at the ready. Fire barges. Nothing that could begin to dance the sky with a dragon.

  On the horizon, the ship began to drop. “Fire in the branches,” Unyet swore. “We needed that ship.”

  Ishe didn’t care for the reasons why High Tree didn’t have their own ships. Maybe they did, but they simply weren’t in the area. The cargo ship was going to fall at the foot of the mountains. Judging from the size of the mountain, the ship was about five miles out. Pivoting around, Ishe took in the landscape. High Tree’s territory formed a V-shaped valley, Yaz’noth’s hidden valley at the point and the opening toward the plains that bordered the Golden Hills’ farmland. The ship had come over the west mountain ridge. All traffic from the Golden Hills, to the frustration of every single ship captain in the land, had to pass through the Grand Torii, adding at least two hours to the trip unless you came directly from Lyndon. That meant the ship had slipped around the back of the Golden Hills, probably from Low Rivers territory. High Tree might be its last stop.

  A pile of neat crates was sitting, waiting for it, all in the same small boxes she had seen in Starry Night’s home. One stood open, a show crate to demonstrate the quality of the goods. In it were rocks spotted rusty red. Iron ore. That meant a mine. Ishe’s gaze shifted out across the tree tops. Around the dock, all the trees were healthy and green, but beyond that, about where Unyet’s forge was, marked a border where the pine needles became patchy and brown; some trees in the grid bore burn scars or were missing entirely. War had visited this place recently. Nobody she’d seen looked hungry, but those trees meant they’d lost some of their hanging gardens. They probably traded ore for grain and rice, the Golden Hills’ chief export.

  “Unyet, we need to get to the Golden Hills as fast as we can.. “I need a ship. Drosa told you about Yaz’noth, yes?”

  He glanced at Drosa. “Yes. Something about your sister and quicksilver.”

  “We need to get to that ship. Fend off that dragon long enough to salvage or cobble together something that can get the four of us to the Golden Hills. If I don’t get there in time, then you’ll need to find a different place to trade for food.”

  “We can get halfway t
here on the mining road, then we’ll go by foot,” Unyet said after a long moment of thinking. He rounded on the rest of the crew, who had mostly been watching. Sparrow’s gaze looked to be at something nobody else could see. “Everyone will swear to take the location of the mine to their graves via a branded oath.”

  Ishe had heard of those. “We don’t have time for any of that. We can give you our word.”

  “And what was the oath of Madria worth, Ishe?” Unyet asked.

  About as much as the breath Mother used to speak it, Ishe thought, knowing her face said as much.

  Unyet nodded. “I’m going to have to do this without consulting the council, and I know they will insist on this for an outsider to see our road. It won’t take long. In return, you get first salvage rights so it’s all legal.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Ishe insisted. “And the last thing we need while dealing with a dragon is to go in burned.”

  “It will be done by the time we manage to get the spider harnessed.”

  I am Ishe the doormat, Ishe thought as she pulled herself up onto the barge. The new circular burn on her bicep throbbed smartly, and she was determined to ignore it as well as Drosa had. Sparrow hadn’t even blinked. Catter, though, as he watched the brand press to flesh, took a very large step back.

  “Sorry.” A nervous smile fluttered on his broad face as he snapped a salute. “I am done, Captain Ishe.” The honorific sounded hollow as he shuffled farther away.

  Ishe could only stare back at him. She’d saved him! Leapt into the Grief-infested water after him.

  “Getting your sister’s all noble and like,” Catter said, even as he backed away. “But you haven’t seen much of High Tree; there’s space here for me. They might build their own fleet soon.” He turned to Sparrow. “Thanks for getting me out of that pit and all.”