The traitor is unmasked; I know him.
—Private journals, Landerath
Early the next morning, they came to land. It seemed to Kaeldra that she had just dozed off when she was awakened by winches creaking, men shouting and tramping, loads thudding on the deck overhead. Sailors were moving through the hold, as well, she realized with a start. She jerked upright to warn the draclings, but they were nowhere in sight.
〈Embyr?〉
She felt an answering tingle.
〈Stay,〉 she warned.
The ship shook with activity. At least, Kaeldra thought, it had ceased its wretched rolling. She crept out from behind the stacks of baled wool to the open space where Jeorg sat hunched on the floor beside the rope pile. He looked at her and seemed about to say something, but she turned away, refusing to meet his eyes. Crouching on the opposite side of the cleared-out area, she watched the men.
They were unloading cargo. Had they arrived in Kragrom? Would she be sold to King Urk now?
The sailors lugged crates and casks through the gloomy hold and up the ladder into the brightness beyond the hatch. Some made jeering remarks to Jeorg, which he ignored. No one spoke to Kaeldra, although once or twice she thought she caught the movement of a hand in the sign-against-evil.
Soon, men came for the cargo just behind Kaeldra; she moved away. The cleared-out area spread toward the edges of the ship, toward the draclings.
Kaeldra felt a growing anxiety. What if they unloaded the entire ship, leaving no place for the draclings to hide? They could crawl back into the casks in which they had come, but she could not reach them to put on the lids. She willed the men to stop, to get out of the hold, to set sail again. They didn’t. Yet in a little while they began to bring in new cargo, and the cleared-out area began to shrink.
The tightness eased in her shoulders and neck. Safe for now. But for how long? She had to do something, and soon. Sometime, they would empty the ship, and the draclings would have no place to hide. There was nothing she could do for herself; she was chained fast and at the mercy of whatever might befall her. But perhaps she could do one last thing for the draclings.
In time the flow of men into the hold diminished to a trickle, then stopped altogether. The hatch door slammed shut. She heard voices overhead, but not many, and surmised that most of the men had gone ashore.
Kaeldra pushed a crate beneath a porthole and climbed up. The hole was square, a little larger than her head. Her shoulders would not fit through it, though, even if she weren’t chained. But the draclings—she had seen them squirm out of some very snug places. Perhaps they were narrow enough.
Looking out, Kaeldra saw that the ship was moored to a stone-built wharf, beyond which stood a small walled town. To the north curved a narrow, cliff-lined beach, strewn with boulders and heaps of sea-bleached logs. The cliffs were shrouded in a dreary, bluish gray mist, through which bulked the shadowy profiles of needlecone trees.
Kaeldra scooted the crate to the porthole at the opposite side of the ship, away from the wharf. She felt Jeorg looking at her, but pretended not to notice. Instead, she called for the draclings. They romped to her, thrumming through the half-lit gloom. Then, perversely, they ran to Jeorg and greeted him, too.
〈Here! Come here!〉 she said crossly. But they did not. Kaeldra dragged Pyro away from Jeorg and lugged him to her crate.
Ungrateful monsters, she thought. I don’t know why I bother with them.
She grappled with Pyro, lifting him up toward the porthole to see if he would fit through. But he twisted, flailed, wriggled out of her grasp, then scrambled behind Jeorg.
“Allow me,” Jeorg said, tucking Pyro under his arm. “You want me to pitch him overboard or what?”
“No!” Kaeldra glared at Jeorg, not wanting to accept his help, yet knowing she must. “I just want to see if he fits through,” she said finally.
He did. Jeorg pushed and the dracling somehow twisted and squeezed and wriggled until the largest part of his stomach had passed through the hole.
“Quick! Haul him back in before someone sees!”
Slowly, with Jeorg’s help, Pyro worked his way back inside.
“Thank you,” Kaeldra said, her eyes averted.
Jeorg inclined his head in a small, mocking bow.
Kaeldra tried to explain her plan to Embyr because the others always seemed to obey her. But it was difficult to make the dracling understand. Embyr kept asking where Kaeldra would be. 〈Just swim that way, up the coast,〉 Kaeldra said. 〈I will come later.〉
Embyr had trouble, as well, with the idea of carrying out an order sometime in the future. 〈Now?〉 she kept asking.
〈No,〉 Kaeldra said. 〈Not now.〉
Later, when the draclings were napping, Kaeldra thought about her plan. The draclings might be able to survive on their own for a little while, at least. They could forage for food in the sea; they seemed to have ceased floating in their sleep.
If Landerath were dead, what more could she do—even if she did manage to escape? Granmyr, she remembered, had said something about a council bluff. Something about summoning the dragons with a name. But Kaeldra had no idea where the bluff might be, nor what the name.
Still, she wouldn’t send them away unless she absolutely must. If she did, she doubted she would see them ever again. Kaeldra did not know what would become of her charges if they escaped into the sea. The world was full of peril for draclings. But at least they would have a chance.
Over and over Kaeldra reviewed her plan, looking for flaws, keeping her thoughts busy, pushing back the fear that pressed against her heart: And what is to happen to me?
* * *
That night, there was a commotion outside. Shouts. Feet tramping on deck. The distant rumble of hoofbeats. Before Kaeldra could rise, Jeorg sprang to his feet and dashed to the wharf-side porthole. Kaeldra sat listening.
A shouted greeting. The jingle of riding gear. Jeorg cried out a word Kaeldra did not know, and then there was a thundering of footsteps above. The hatch opened with a creak. The light of many lanterns pricked the darkness, and a mass of people descended into the hold.
Kaeldra retreated into the shadows. The captain climbed down first, followed by a man in a flowing red robe, then a contingent of armed men.
“Is this the girl?” the man in red asked, approaching Kaeldra. He walked with a limp, she saw.
“Modin!” Jeorg, his chain clanking, strode forward to embrace the man.
〈Now?〉 It was Embyr, hidden far back in the hold.
〈No. Not now.〉
“You know this man?” the captain asked.
The man disengaged himself from Jeorg’s embrace, his eyes on Kaeldra. His robe, Kaeldra saw, was of velvet, richly embroidered in gold. A shag of grizzled hair frizzed out around the man’s face, which looked gaunt and skull white in the light from his lantern. His eyes were lost in pools of darkness.
“He is known to me,” the man said.
“Modin,” Jeorg said, “by the Blade it’s good to see you! I have been beaten and detained against my will. They have insulted me and Landerath. Tell them to release me at once. And”—he turned briefly toward Kaeldra—“the girl, as well. She has done nothing.”
The man in red turned to the captain. He spoke softly, but there was a cutting edge beneath. “It is well you captured him. This man is one of Landerath’s companions in treachery, plotting to bend the wrath of dragons to their own demented ends.”
Jeorg looked as if he had been slapped. “But, Modin! You know me! I am no traitor!”
“I know very well what you are.”
“Then I demand that you have me released. I am a vassal of the king!”
“Batten your jaws!” the captain bellowed. He turned to the man in red and said in an altogether different tone, “I am honored to be of service, Sir Modin. Is there aught—”
Jeorg lunged at Modin, clutched at his robe. “Why are you lying? Tell him to release me. I’m no traitor!”
“Detain him.” The man in red did not raise his voice, but his order galvanized his men. Three of them rushed forward and pulled Jeorg away while two more bound his hands behind his back.
The captain spoke. “Begging your pardon, milord, but may we expect some small, ah, recompense for capturing this traitor?”
“Certainly. You are bound for the capital, I assume?”
“Yes, we are sailing to Zarig, but—”
“You will find the king most generous.”
“But, begging your leave, I thought that—you would take him. If he is as dangerous as you say—”
“I will leave my guards. Now, the girl—”
“Modin!” Jeorg cried, struggling to free himself. “You’ll be sorry! I—”
One of the guards dealt him a brutal blow to the stomach. Jeorg grunted, sagging.
Kaeldra shrank back, afraid, as the man in red approached. He brought the lantern to her face; she blinked and turned away. “Look at me, my dear,” he said. Beyond the lantern’s glare, his features blurred and faded into darkness. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Yes. You will come with me.” He turned to one of his men. “Bind her hands.” And to the captain: “Unshackle her foot.”
“But—” the captain said. “The reward?”
“Ah, the reward.” Modin reached into the folds of his gown and took out a leather bag. He tossed it to the captain. “I trust that will suffice?”
The captain opened the bag. His eyes grew large. “Yes, milord. The king is very generous.”
Kaeldra felt the cold metal slip off her foot at the same time the ropes gripped her hands. She glanced at Jeorg. He looked bewildered. Like a child, she thought. Like a little boy. All at once she longed to reach out to him, to sweep the hair from his eyes.
Stop that! she told herself fiercely. Remember, he set out to kill dragons.
But he has changed, an inner voice answered. He would not do so now.
〈Now?〉 It was Embyr.
Kaeldra’s heart wrenched. It was time. The men were turned toward Kaeldra now; no one would notice the quiet movement in the dark behind their backs. And although she had planned for this moment, until now she had not truly believed it would come to pass.
〈Now,〉 Kaeldra said. 〈Go now.〉