Yet herein lies the peril: as the falcon finds the dragon, the dragon feels the finding.
—Dragonslayer’s Guyde
Not until dawn did Kaeldra know that they were followed.
The kestrel had led them north of Myrrathog. They must turn east, she knew: over the mountains to the sea, over the sea to Kragrom, then over the sea again, to the island of Rog. But soon Kaeldra had lost all sense of direction. The moonlit landscape flowed around them: a confusion of winding sheep paths, of crowded forests, of wind and rock and stunted trees.
Often the kestrel disappeared, and Kaeldra was left to stumble on with no guide. But just as fear would begin to swell in her throat, she would hear the cry, feel the wingbeat, see the dark flying form ahead.
Now the kestrel swooped past, soared over the next rise. Cresting the hill, Kaeldra looked down into a soft darkness of trees. There was a rushing of water, a freshness of air.
A stream.
The draclings tumbled lightly down the slope. They pranced and drank in the stream, sent up a silvery spray.
Kaeldra followed. She plunged her hands into the water and drank until her throat ached with cold.
The moon drifted through the trees. The air was sweet with fir. From nearby came a ring owl’s muted whoot.
Kaeldra shivered. She felt a sudden unease, as if something had shadowed the moon. The draclings stood still, eyes to the sky.
〈What is it?〉 she asked.
She reached for an answer, and the earth dipped under her feet, stars wheeling and swaying around her.
Kaeldra touched her temples. I’m hungry, she thought. That’s all. She clambered up an outcropping of boulders and opened her blanket roll. The draclings surged up the rocks, shaking off water in luminous sheets. She gave each a hunk of dried meat, then tore off some for herself. Only hunger. She stretched out her legs, flexed her feet.
〈Hungry.〉 Pyro nosed at the blanket.
As always. Kaeldra tore off more meat for the draclings. There had better be hart where they were going. Or bear or wypari or something else big. Well, Kaeldra thought, that was not her concern. She would deliver the draclings to this Landerath, and he would get them to their kyn.
She wondered, not for the first time, how Jeorg had come to possess Landerath’s brooch. Was he a thief as well as a slayer? He did not seem so.
Kaeldra shivered again. Jeorg. When she set out, she had listened for the hoofbeats, for the gyrfalcon’s cry. But even the dragonslayer could not have tracked them in the dark, she told herself. Not this far.
Abruptly, she wrapped the remaining food, rolled it up in the blanket. 〈That is enough. We must save some for later.〉
〈More,〉 Pyro demanded. 〈Hungry.〉
〈Hungry. Hungry,〉 Embyr and Synge chimed in.
〈No. No more. You can have more later.〉 The draclings pressed around her, sniffed at the blanket roll. Pyro bit it, clamped on with his teeth. 〈No, Pyro! Let go! Give it to me!〉 Pyro tugged. Kaeldra yanked back. There was a ripping sound; a flap of blanket hung ragged from the roll.
May they burst from eating so much! The thought came to Kaeldra before she could squelch it. They needed more meat every day. A mountain of meat! She saw herself suddenly, standing next to Myrrathog. Only the mountain wasn’t made of rock. It was made of meat. Raw meat. She was scooping out handfuls and flinging them at three grown dragons.
Where would she ever get that much meat?
Pyro nudged her hand; Kaeldra jerked it away. 〈Oh, stop it!〉 She would never find enough meat, never. She stared at the stream.
She rummaged through the blanket roll. There. A candle. She held it in front of Pyro.
〈Flame!〉 she thought.
Puzzlement.
Kaeldra closed her eyes. She pictured in her mind a flame, flickering above the candle.
〈Flame!〉 The candlelight danced in her mind. 〈Flame!〉
Bright-rush! Hot air scorched her cheek.
The candle slumped pathetically, but it was lit. Blue smoke wisps trailed from Embyr’s nostrils.
Kaeldra laughed. 〈Good girl!〉 She stroked Embyr’s head; the dracling thrummed. Then she knelt by the stream, held the candle low over the water as she had learned when she stayed out with the flock all night in the high country. Something flashed. Kaeldra grabbed for it. Missed! Another flash. This time when she reached, something cool and slippery lurched in her hand. She tossed the fish onto the bank. Pyro pounced; in a gulp it was gone.
Flash again! Kaeldra reached, but Embyr was quicker. With a single swipe of her talons, she flipped the fish out of the water onto the bank.
The draclings learned fast. Kaeldra merely held the candle; before long the stream bank glistened with fish and spray and happy draclings. They ate until their sides bulged, until dawn bled up through the trees to the sky.
“Kreekreekreekreekree!”
The kestrel burst through the trees, streaked across the stream, calling wildly.
“Wha—?” Kaeldra stared after it, into the woods. Then from far away came the sound she had dreaded, a sound that pricked at the flesh on her back.
A gyrfalcon’s cry.
The dragonslayer. She knew it was his bird as surely as if she had seen him release it. He was following them, and he was near.
The cry came again, fainter, farther.
〈Hurry! Let’s go.〉 Kaeldra blew out the candle, tied up the torn blanket roll. They crossed the stream and plunged into the wood.
When all of the stars had faded, the kestrel led them to a cave. It was a small cave, much smaller than the dragon den. Kaeldra dared not make a fire. Quickly, she set snares in a stand of scrubby firs a little way below. She dragged a heap of brush to the cave, stacked it in front of the opening from inside, then curled up among the draclings and slipped into a restless sleep.
* * *
A thin, blue smoke strand threaded up through the trees to the sky.
The dragonslayer.
Kaeldra knew it must be he. She squinted into the midday sky and found what she sought. A black speck, circling high above the smoke. Who else would be out in these woods with a gyrfalcon?
Hands shaking, Kaeldra untied the blanket roll. She had checked the snares as soon as she had wakened. Empty. Now the draclings thronged about her, snuffling, poking her with their noses. She meted out the last of the food, then packed to go.
〈Hungry.〉
〈Hungry.〉
〈Not now. We must go.〉
All afternoon the hills and ridges rose before them like waves on a wind-blown lake. Each time Kaeldra thought the next must be the last, with the Kragish Sea beyond it, a ripple of ridges would swell up before her, lapping at the horizon in long, thin lines. The shadows lengthened, and the wind whipped hard. The draclings stumbled on loose rocks and cringed against the wind, silent except for an occasional faint hungry, which drifted like smoke through her mind.
Kaeldra strained to hear or see the falcon, but could do neither. Yet often when she looked into the draclings’ green eyes, she felt the strange floating dizziness she had sensed before. These moments filled her with foreboding, as if she could enter the draclings’ minds and touch the consciousness of another—something flying—a bird. They could commune with birds, she knew, with birds and with dragon-sayers. And if a falcon could feel the draclings’ thoughts, might it not lead its falconer to them?
Toward nightfall a heavy mass of clouds curled in. A late snow began to fall in fat, wet flakes.
A damp chill crept through her cloak, lodged in her bones. She strapped on her shoe-baskets, but still slipped and sank and faltered in the snow. Her feet and hands grew numb; the world shrank to a circle of snowflakes, which swarmed like sprybugs around her candle. The flame was yellow, like firelight at home. Like firelight, with something simmering—with stew in a pot above it. When Kaeldra looked into the flame, she could feel the warmth, could hear the familiar voices, could smell the stew. She tasted the way it separated into tender strands in her mouth, the way the juices rolled over her tongue and the spices tickled her nose. She heard the baby crying. . . .
And she was in the snow again, in the freezing dark, and the kestrel was crying. She looked round for the draclings. They floundered after her, pillowed with snow. Synge lagged far behind the others and moved so slowly, Kaeldra feared she would soon collapse. There was nothing else to do. Kaeldra stumbled through the snow after Synge, then carried her in the direction of the kestrel’s cry.
The wind abated; the air warmed. A darker darkness crowded around them. Trees.
Kaeldra set out the snares and made camp in the shelter of firs. Embyr and Pyro breathed sparks for a fire. There was no food.
In Kaeldra’s dreams the draclings were eating. They were eating a mountain of meat.