Chapter 29

“Come along,” Shavala told the mule, which had come to an abrupt halt when it noticed the dragon’s corpse on the far side of the camp. “It’s dead, it can’t hurt you. We’ll get you some oats and then get your leg fixed.”

She managed to convince the limping animal to follow her the last fifty yards to the spot where Bili, a ballista crew member who’d worked as a stablehand back in Four Roads, was caring for the four mules Shavala had brought back earlier, along with half a dozen others that had returned on their own.

“I promised him some oats,” she told the man. “Is Treya awake yet?”

“I dun think so, Miss, uh, Miss Elf,” Bili stammered.

Boktar joined them. “It’s hurt?” he asked, looking over the mule.

“His right foreleg,” Shavala said. “Can Priest Conley do something about it?”

“Conley’s not in any shape for more healing right now.” Boktar felt along the mule’s leg. “Doesn’t seem too bad,” he said. “It can wait until tomorrow if need be.”

“I had to kill one that fell into a ditch,” Shavala admitted. “Two of its legs were broken, and some ribs. It couldn’t stand up and it was in too much pain to just leave it there until Treya could come.”

The stoneborn man blew out his breath. “Well, we lost a ballista and one of the supply wagons, so if we have to, we can get by without as many mules. We need to find as many as we can, though—they can still carry supplies, and we’ll need to salvage whatever we can find from the wagon and spread the load around.”

The mule’s carrying capacity wasn’t why Shavala had been saddened, but she supposed Boktar had to think about that sort of thing. She’d tell Corec or Treya about it instead. They might understand ... or at least pretend to. Luckily, with Leena’s warning, there’d been time to unyoke the mule teams. If the animals had been forced to flee in tandem with their yoke mates, more would have died.

“I saw more tracks,” she said. “I’ll go out again later, but some have probably run too far for us to get them back.”

Boktar nodded. “We have to camp here until we find more of them anyway, so I’ll send a few men out in different directions. They might get lucky.”

“Where’s Corec?”

“He’s got a crew looking for rocks to build a cairn for the men who died. We’re too far from Four Roads to get the bodies back home, and he didn’t want to burn them.”

“I’ll go look for him,” Shavala said.

She found Corec in a dry creek bed west of the dragon’s body, digging up wide, flat stones and setting them in a pile. Two knights were doing the same farther down the bed, while three of the armsmen were then carrying the stones closer to the camp.

“I found more of the mules,” she said.

“That’s good.” Corec’s voice was dull.

“You sound tired. You should take a break.”

“I wanted to keep busy,” he said with a glance at the three blanket-covered mounds laid out side by side near the camp. “And I don’t want to just leave them lying there.”

She took him by the hand and led him to the low pile of stones he’d been gathering. He sat down, which brought his head below hers. She wouldn’t have to crane her neck to look up at him.

“Other people can take over,” she said.

He stared off into the distance. “I’m the one who got them killed. The knights knew how dangerous it was, at least from books, but the others had no idea what they were getting into.”

“It was the dragon that killed them,” she reminded him. “Not you.” Half the reason she’d gone searching for the mules on her own was to give herself time for her own mourning, both for the three lost men and for the dragon itself, which had only become aggressive because of some unknown instinctual imperative. Its end had been terrible, dying slowly and in agony as it was stabbed over and over.

As a hunter, Shavala understood death, but at least then it served a purpose. The dorvasta didn’t hunt dragons as food because there was debate between the druids on whether they should be considered thinking creatures, but even among humans, dragon meat wasn’t typically considered to be edible.

“I know, but—”

She tilted her head to the side. “And didn’t you warn everyone it would be dangerous?” Shavala hadn’t been around while Corec had been training the men, but Treya and Ellerie had told her about it.

He didn’t answer, but simply leaned his head against her chest and held her around the waist. That was different—he’d been careful not to show affection in public since she’d rejoined the group. Their friends would understand, but the knights and armsmen were aware of his relationship with Katrin, and he hadn’t wanted to try to explain anything more complicated than that. Humans worried about the strangest things.

Shavala laid a hand on his head and waited until he stood up, letting go of her.

“You’re right,” he said. “Someone else can take over for a while. I could use some rest.”

She accompanied him back toward the camp but paused as they were passing by the dragon. There were cut marks along its scales that hadn’t been there after the battle.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I had to stop some of the men from hacking at it—I didn’t want them hurting themselves. Kevik and Georg cut the teeth out instead, and promised one to each of them so they’d have something to take home. I sawed off the horns, too, in case we need proof the dragon’s dead.”

Shavala wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Hunting trophies for the sake of trophies was wrong, but if the creature had to die anyway, at least those small parts of it could be used. And some traditional dorvasta tools, from the days before metalworking was common, still made use of the horns and teeth of various animals.

She just nodded.

Corec gestured to the dragon. “Would you do what you did back at Tir Yadar?” he asked. “I don’t think we should leave it out here like this. As soon as the locals find out where the body is, some of them will make the trip to see it. They might get sick if they mess around with it.”

He had a good point. The dragon’s corpse would take a long time to decompose, and by the time the armor scales had softened enough for scavengers to get to the meat, the insides were likely to be unfit even for most carrion-eaters. There was no need for a tershaya grove way out here, but the body could be fed to the grasses and plants that were already growing.

“I’ll go get the staff.”

It was the heat and humidity that woke Leena, and the familiar smell of the sun beating down on the canvas of an already-warm tent. After the cool, brisk air of early spring in the north, it felt like home. She opened her eyes to realize she was home, lying on a cot in her grandmother’s tent.

Ellerie was sprawled on a pile of cushions nearby. It took Leena a moment to remember what had happened. The dragon had attacked. Her lover had been in danger, and she’d reacted without thinking. She remembered arriving at her family’s camp, but not much after that.

“Elle?” she said.

Ellerie opened her eyes and sat up too quickly to have been asleep. “Hey,” she said, kneeling by the cot and laying her palm across Leena’s brow. “You’re awake.”

“The dragon...” Leena said. “What happened after we...?”

“I don’t know,” Ellerie said. “Corec’s alive, but I don’t know anything else.”

Of course. How would she know anything about it if she was here in Sanvar?

Leena did a quick Seeking on each of Corec’s bondmates. She braced herself for the expected twinge of pain for using magic so soon after suffering drain shock, but it never came.

“They’re alive,” she said. “All of them.”

Some of the tension drained from Ellerie’s expression. “They’re safe?” she asked. “I forgot you could look for them. They must have killed the dragon, then, or chased it off.” Then her face fell. “You can’t find Boktar or Ariadne, can you? Or Bobo?”

“No, they’re too far away.” The only reason Leena could find the others was because her Seeking magic could somehow act through the warden bond. “But if everyone else is alive, I’m sure they’re fine.”

Ellerie looked down. “Not everyone. Sir Willem was right there in the dragon’s path. I don’t think he made it.”

Leena hadn’t noticed the knight, having been too concerned about Ellerie’s safety. She propped herself up on the cot and gathered the elven woman into her arms. “Corec and Boktar will watch over them all,” she said. “They’ll have saved as many as they could.”

Ellerie sighed and nodded.

“What happened after I fell asleep?” Leena asked, letting go so she could swing her legs around and sit up at the edge of the cot.

“Your uncle thought Pavan might be able to take me back to where we were, but Pavan wasn’t here in the camp and I couldn’t explain exactly where we’d come from. There wasn’t any way to get back before the fight was over, so I stayed. Your grandmother let me sleep in here.”

“You talked to Pavan?” Leena asked. Ellerie and Pavan had only met once, before Leena had told him the truth about her relationship with the elven woman, but if Leena was going to bear Pavan’s children, he and Ellerie would have to get to know each other at some point.

Ellerie shrugged uncomfortably. “No. Since I couldn’t get back to the fight in time to help, I decided to wait and see how you were feeling. Do you think you’ll be able to take me back? I don’t want you to pass out again.”