That wasn’t where I’d expected to come out.
I retraced my steps, found another viaduct farther along the courtyard of upright boulders. I followed it. Halfway down its dark length I smelled manure and maht, the regur gitated crop contents of dragons. I’d found the messenger byre.
I paused at the threshold of the byre court. A vast black shoal of cloud was swallowing the moon at one end and dis gorging stars at the other, and the sky growled like a great, uneasy dog. The wind was cooler and lively; a dust devil swirled across the courtyard, carrying flakes of chaff with it. I half expected to see Auditors drift specterlike from the darkest corners of the court, as they had done on the day I’d landed in Xxamer Zu.
Don’t, I told myself. No ghosts here.
Dragon stalls lined two walls of the court. The shadowy humps of sleeping escoas filled six of the stalls. To my left squatted a small stone cottage with a thatch roof: the stable hands’ residence. From the size of the byre, and the number of escoas present, I speculated there would be three stablehands in the cottage at most.
No bowmen standing there to rescue you this time. My teeth chattered.
An open-air tack hall stood to my right, under an arcade. The tack hall and the stablehands’ cottage formed one side of the courtyard; the stalls formed two; and the granary and hayloft where the dragonmaster and I had hidden com pleted the square.
Move, girl, move. You’re wasting time.
My legs felt locked, especially up in my thighs. Fear re ally
can
cripple.
Moving stiffly, the hairs on my scalp tingling, I slunk into the tack hall. Across the court, the escoas slept undis turbed.
I lifted down a set of reins and draped it over my neck. The leather was impregnated with beeswax and the rich scent of dragon; the smells triggered a furious venom with drawal attack that dropped me to my knees and left me dizzy and disoriented for long moments after it passed.
Great Dragon, I can’t do this.
But I would. I had to. No half measures.
Trembling, I staggered to my feet, lifted down two more sets of reins, draped them about my neck, and found in a fusty cabinet a curved paring knife, the kind used to trim the calluses from a dragon’s claw pads. I wiped the sweat from my palms. Gripped the knife. Approached the stablehands’ cottage.
Calm and easy, I told myself, and shivered with nerves. Calm and easy.
I placed a hand upon the heavy wooden door and tacitly asked the splintered timber to be quiet. Wasn’t the wood I should have begged for silence. It was the hinges. They cackled at me. I froze.
“Who’s there?” The voice was young, sleep-frogged, and frightened. After a pause, a tremulous whisper: “Kaban? You left the door open.”
I stayed where I was, heart hammering, hand tight around the paring knife. Inside the hut, a series of wet snores. Over head, thunder rumbled.
“Kaban?” Again, the summons was hesitant, as if the speaker wasn’t sure whether he wished to wake the snorer or no.
The snores faltered, then whiffled on.
I pressed against the door, straining to hear. The soft padding of bare feet approached. Closer. Closer.
Calm and easy. Calm and easy . . .
I waited until the footfalls were as close as I wanted before I shoved the door open, hard. It thudded against a blockage. A yelp of pain; I stepped around the door, into the hut. A youth stood several inches from the door, naked as a babe, his hands clutched over his bleeding nose. Even as he gaped at me, I stepped behind him and touched the point of my knife to his throat.
“Say a word and I’ll cut you ear to ear. Put your hands behind your back.”
The boy did so, shivering. He was bony, about thirteen years old, and he readily submitted to having his arms trussed behind his back with a set of reins, even though his arms were sinewy with muscle from long hours spent muck ing out stalls, and he could have proved a handful if he’d had the mind to. I suspected he was the same unlucky stablehand who’d witnessed the ambush attempt of the Auditors.
Two hammocks were strung from bowed rafters in the middle of the hut. One was empty, a dark tunic balled into a pillow at one end. Upon the other hammock sprawled a heavy man whose eyes were closed and mouth was wide open. He was snoring lustily, and his tunic—which had the crest of a herald embroidered over the left breast—was torqued about him. He was rank with the stench of semen and wine, and another smell hung faintly in the air, the fetid, sweetish smell of human excrement.
I shoved my bound captive closer to the empty ham mock, knife nicking the skin on the boy’s throat. He shud dered mightily. “Quiet, now. Not a word.”
With one hand I snatched the balled tunic from the empty hammock. “Don’t move.” I pushed him facedown over the hammock and swiftly hacked a strip from the tu nic. “I’m going to gag you.”
I could see each segment of his spine, the boy was so bony. It was then that I noticed the ugly welts on his but tocks, as if he’d been pinned down and bludgeoned merci lessly. There were bite marks on his back. Rivulets of blood, dried and flaking, coated the insides of the boy’s thighs. The smell of semen and excrement came from him.
I knew, then, why the boy was submitting to me so read ily, and it had nothing to do with fear of what he’d wit nessed some fourteen days ago in the byre. He was used to submitting to others; the other stablehand regularly beat submission into him.
I had a brother about the boy’s age. Somewhere.
“What’s your name?” I asked softly.
“Ryn.” It came out a thready whisper.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ryn. Promise. This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to saddle every escoa in this byre and we’re going to fly them out of here, you and I.”
I turned him around to face me. His eyes were huge, and his ears projected winglike from his head. I nodded at the torn remains of his tunic. “That’s the emblem of an appren tice herald. Have you flown an escoa before?”
A nodding of the head: yes.
“Are any of the escoas stabled here from elsewhere?”
Yes.
“How many of them? One? Two?”
So quietly I had to lean forward to hear him, he mut tered, “Two.”
Hmm. That was less than ideal. Stealing the dragons that belonged to another Clutch was worrisome. It meant that heralds who expected to leave come dawn, or in a few days’ time, would be missed by their home stables when they didn’t return.
No half measures.
I tugged on Ryn’s knots, checking that they were secure. I slipped the gag across his mouth and tugged it tight. “Out side, then. I’m going to tie you to a stall while I saddle the escoas, understand? First I’m going to do something about
him
, in case he wakes.”
I plucked a heavy candlestick from a coarse table shoved in a corner of the room and stood over the drunk’s ham mock for a moment, watching drool slide down one of his slack, stubbled cheeks. My heart was racing so fast, the brass candlestick in my hands seemed to throb with my pulse.
All I had to do was hit the man. I certainly had reason enough to do so, remembering the marks on Ryn’s body. But I found it hard to strike a sleeping man senseless, how ever repungant that man was. I hope this says something good about me.
Didn’t stop me from crashing the brass against his fore head the moment he sensed my presence looming over him and began to open his eyes, though. The sound the candle stick made against his forehead was soft and resonant.
Shaking badly, I dropped the candlestick and used one of the sets of reins draped over my neck to tie the drunk’s heavy hands and ankles together. I wove his bindings in and out of his hammock, so that when he regained con sciousness he’d be unable to rise. It was as I was hacking a strip from his tunic to gag him that I briefly entertained the thought of castrating him with my paring knife. Dismissed the idea, though. Too messy.
Ryn seemed twice as scared of me after I’d finished bind ing the drunk, and he shivered as I placed a hand on one of his bony elbows and guided him outside.
The night air now smelled muddy and rotted, and the wind had turned blustery and cool. The clouds looked like bloated corpses dressed in the tattered remnants of shrouds, floating upon a river of stars.
We crossed the long, narrow courtyard. Ryn flinched as I stood him against a stall’s cool iron gate, and trembled while I tied him to it. The escoa within shifted, uneasy, but not alarmed. Not yet.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Ryn. And I promise I’ll bring you back to this byre one day.”
His eyes slid from mine. He didn’t believe me, was on the verge of tears. Thunder boomed in the distance and echoed across the savanna.
I opened the stall, lifting the heavy metal latch slowly to prevent clanking noises. Murmuring to the escoa within, I pushed the stall door open, forcing Ryn, who was tied to it, to shuffle into the stall as the gate swung on its hinges. Once inside, I knotted my paring knife onto my hip using a twist of my bitoo, then set to work with hands slicked with nervous sweat.
One Dragon, keep me safe. Don’t let anyone come into the byre, not now.
I unscrewed one knob off the end of the nose barbell that was attached to the bridle draped across my neck. With one hand firmly upon the escoa’s snout, I slid the barbell through the hole that had been punched into the cartilage between her nares. That done, I screwed the knob back on, swiftly adjusted the leather straps of the bridle over her snout, then led her out of the stall, licking my lips that had gone terribly dry, trying to steady my breath that was com ing too quickly.
The escoa was a docile beast, used to unfamiliar people and strange stables from her work carrying packages and riders to assorted destinations. She readily followed me across the courtyard to the tack hall, moving in her harelike dragon lunge, eyes bright, forked tongue flickering between her gums. I lashed her reins to the saddling bar, lifted a heavy leather-and-wood saddle from a wall rack, and heaved the saddle over her back.
The saddle wasn’t as streamlined as a destrier’s, and in stead of one surcingle, it had two bands that required tug ging snug beneath dragon belly. The extra work aggravated me no end; time was running short; anyone might appear at any time; the night would be drawing to a close too soon....
I shot a nervous look across the yard at Ryn, who didn’t appear to be fighting his bindings. Shot a look at the dark maw of the viaduct that led into the courtyard. Shot a look at the stablehands’ hut.
I finished with the first escoa, then led a second dragon from her stall, tethered her to the saddling bar, and readied her for flight.
Faster, Zarq. Move faster. Don’t keep looking over your shoulder. Concentrate on what you’re doing.
I had two escoas saddled and ready. I could escape now. But four escoas still remained in the byre, and I wanted to cut off Ghepp’s access to the outside world. . . .
No half measures.
I reeked of fear, was slicked with sweat, and the muscles at the back of my neck were rigid from where I was clench ing my jaw so tight. I approached a third escoa, forced my self to methodically saddle her. Then a fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Toss wing bolts and hobbles into every saddlebag. String the dragons together, snout to rump, the reins from each nose barbell tied to the saddle horn of the dragon standing before it.
Stop looking over your shoulder. Quit dropping things. Stay focused; force your hands to stop shaking so you can tie that knot. Where’d I put that damn bridle? It was here a moment ago. Stay calm, for the love of wings!
As a dragonmaster apprentice, each morning I’d watched the veteran apprentices lead the destriers in a long line to an exercise field. The destriers hadn’t been tethered to gether, but the dragonish habit of walking in a line, in the clawprints of the dragon that proceeded it, had inspired my plan.
The escoas grew frisky with the prospect of flight. Their ear slits dilated as they looked about, and their tongues— pink, forked, and venom-free—flicked from between their gums as they scented the night air. They began unfurling their wings.
Someone would hear them. Even above the rumbling of thunder, even despite the late hour.
I looked as if I had palsy, I was trembling so badly. I glanced again at the viaduct, again at the cottage where the drunk was bound. Jogged back to Ryn, riding the knife edge of my own terror.
“Now comes the tricky bit,” I panted. “I’ve only flown a dragon as a passenger, so we can do this one of two ways. I can ride the lead escoa, you can ride the one behind me, and we can both pray that I don’t kill us all. Or you can ride the lead escoa with me as passenger, and we can pray that the five escoas behind us will follow. What do you say?”
I removed his gag.
“We need Kaban for this,” he said hoarsely.
“We do this alone.”
Ryn looked at the waiting line of snorting, frisky es coas, though it could barely be likened to a line at all now. The escoas were pulling one against the others, against the barbells I’d inserted through their noses and lashed to the dragon in front of them. As docile as they were, in a few moments the whole string of them would work themselves into an agitated knot.
“I’ll ride lead.” Ryn gasped. “But you should ride the one behind me, urge her airborne. The others’ll follow, but you’ve tethered Ickwi after the lead, and sometimes she’s stubborn at takeoff. She’ll need urging.”
“We’ll put Ickwi in front, then.” But even as I said it, I knew I’d run out of time. The dragons were throwing their hips into the snouts of the ones behind them, twiggy tails lashing this way and that, dewlaps inflated. Ickwi, the sec ond in line, was unfurling her wings and flapping them, sending dust swirling. I was gripped with the sudden urge to run. Run fast, run far, and don’t stop till dawn.
I turned back to Ryn. “You ride lead and I’ll ride Ickwi. I’ve got a strong arm and a good aim; if I think you’re flying me where I don’t want to go, I’ll throw my knife and sink it right through your ribs, understand?”
The paring knife was curved, and would no more fly true and sink deep than a crooked arrow. But Ryn’s fear had left him no ability to reason, and he nodded.
I untied his hands. They were as cold as the iron stall. Side by side we approached the escoas. Both of us were trembling and darting looks nervously into dark corners.
“Where do you want me to fly us?” Ryn asked breath lessly as we approached the frisky escoa second in line, the one Ryn had called Ickwi.
“To the arbiyesku.”
He stared at me. He’d expected a longer flight.
“Wait till I mount Ickwi before you untie the lead from the bar.” I extended a hand to Ickwi. Her tongue flicked out, cool as silk upon my arm, and she watched me with bright, lizard-slitted eyes.