TEN
LISTENING FAR ENOUGH
Someone had carried her below and put her on a cot in what she realized was the baron’s study. Tahoi lay nearby, worried; a couple of the bats clung discreetly to the hangings. The osprey—missing an eye, but miraculously alive—sat on the perch, letting Onua feed him raw fish. Daine sat up. Her head pounded worse than ever, and she felt her stomach heave. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.
Onua got a basin to her just in time. “What’s the matter?” she asked when Daine finished vomiting. “Was it the dragon?”
“No,” she croaked. “How long’ve I been out?”
“Not too long. It’s just after sunset.”
Looking at her shirt, Daine saw it was a gory mess. “What happened?”
“You had a nosebleed. What’s wrong with your head? Can you tell?” Onua smoothed her hair. “It’s important. You’re important.”
They knew she was awake and their struggle to get free increased. She didn’t even know she’d stopped answering the K’mir until coolness entered her veins, driving back the hot fire of the headache. She opened her eyes. Kally held one of her hands, Thom another. The coolness had been theirs.
“Hello,” she said. Her voice sounded like a rusty gate. “Thank you.”
“You’re wearing yourself out.” Maude stood behind the children, looking stern. “You have to let some spells go. I know your magic is different, but your body’s just like anybody else’s. You’re doing too much. Release some of your spells, or we can’t answer for the consequences.”
Daine looked at Onua as the old woman steered Kally and Thom out. “Easy for her to say,” she muttered when the door was safely closed.
Onua brought over a tray of food and put it on the table beside her cot. “Eat. What magic do you have going, anyway?”
Hotcakes, drenched in butter and syrup, fruit juice, hot cocoa. The sugar cleared her head as she ate. “I can’t let them fight,” she said, her mouth full.
“Let who fight?” Onua scratched Tahoi’s ears, and patiently allowed the bats to settle on her shoulders as they listened to Daine.
There was cold water, to cut the sweetness. She drank half a tankard in a gulp. “Them.” She waved her fork in the direction of the woods outside the castle. “The wild creatures—they won’t let me be. They want to fight the raiders—they’ve been wanting to all day.”
Onua moved her fingers to Tahoi’s spine, and the great dog sighed. “I don’t understand. Is it so bad if they fight? It’s their home too.”
Daine glared at her. “They’ll get killed! They’re animals. It’s not for them to get tangled in human stupidness!”
“You won’t like any of that,” Onua told the bat that sniffed the tray. To the girl she said, “It seems to me we tangle them in our stupidity all the time. At least if you tell them how to fight, they have a chance.”
Daine got up and paced. “You don’t understand! Once I meet them or talk to them, I know them. They’re my friends; they’re part of me. When they get hurt and die, it hurts me.” She pounded her chest to make her point.
“You think it doesn’t hurt me, when one of my horses dies?”
Daine blushed, embarrassed. “I forgot. I’m sorry.”
The older woman sighed. “We share this world, Daine. We can’t hold apart from each other—humans and animals are meant to be partners. Aren’t we, Tahoi?” The dog wagged his tail. “He knows. He saved my life, when my husband left me to die. I’ve saved his life since. He can’t cook or sing, and I can’t chase rabbits, but we’re partners all the same. The Riders’ ponies are full partners with their master. They have to be, and that’s what I train them to be, so everyone has a better chance of surviving.
“The Swoop’s animals are in the same trap we are. Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you—and you won’t let them do anything for fear you’ll be hurt. That’s selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?”
Daine winced. “I see your point.”
“You’ve made your friends helpless, just like bandits made you helpless when they killed your family. Of course the animals fight you.” Onua sighed. “We have no choice in being hunted—not animals, not humans. That’s how the world is. The choice we do have is to take it—or fight. Why don’t you show them how not to get killed, and let them decide?” She studied her nails and added, “I’ll be honest with you. We need all the help we can get.”
Daine went to the window, fingering her badger’s claw. I know what she means, she realized. They’ll start with the catapults in the morning and smash our walls. Then they’ll come take Thayet and the children if they’re alive. And the rest—Thom, the twins, Gimpy and Cloud and Mangle…
There’s got to be something my friends can do to help.
Suddenly she remembered a talk she’d heard Buri give the trainees. “If your numbers are small— a Rider Group, say—it’s idiotic to attack face-on when the enemy has superior numbers. But, enemies are only men, and men scare easy. Use booby traps: snares, pits covered with branches, pebbles strewn across the road to cripple them and their mounts. Foul their water sources. Sneak into camp and ruin their food, if you can. Keep up a racket all night so nobody gets any rest, and you’ve got the sentries shooting at ghosts. Do they buy or steal food from the locals? Make sure the food they get their mitts on is moldy, stale, or wet.
“An enemy that’s tired, ill fed, and scared is an enemy who’s half beat.”
We could do that, Daine thought now. If the soldiers here on land are crippled, Thayet and everybody else might be able to fight their way through and escape before the ships get their warriors to the castle.
Closing her eyes, she opened her mind to the extent of her range. The countless animals in the woods around Pirate’s Swoop began to clamor. They wanted her to release them. They wanted to tear, and gnaw, and leap—
Quiet! she yelled.
They obeyed.
She reached first for minks, weasels, and martens—clever, small animals with sharp claws and teeth. They were quick to grasp the images of leather wrappings, rope, and bowstrings. They must not be seen, she said over and over, with all her will behind it; they mustn’t be caught. She pressed the image of bows, knives, and swords into their minds, until they knew to run or hide if they saw a human with a weapon in his hand.
Bears, wild boars, and woodchucks went after supplies, once she’d made them promise to run at any signs of human attack. She left them pulling apart sacks and boxes of grain, cheese, salted meat, and vegetables. Shrews and voles offered to take care of the tea and coffee supplies. If there was an edible or drinkable scrap in the camp by morning, she would be surprised.
Foxes she asked to free the picketed horses and mules. Once she had explained things, the strangers’ mounts were happy to leave their masters and run for the woods. Some of the enemy’s mules, once they were freed, came back to give water barrels a kick or a roll downhill. Owls and bats volunteered to keep the guards busy. Sentry after sentry had the unpleasant experience of an owl dropping on him silently from above, or of a bat flying directly into his face. Raccoons walked away with arrows and knives. Wolves howled on the fringes of the camp, to be answered by wildcats of all sizes.
Gods go with all of you, she thought sadly, and broke off the contact.
The room was empty. Surprisingly, it hadn’t taken long to muster her army at all: the candle that marked the time had burned down one hour’s mark and half of another. I guess it’s easier to get them to do what they want than it is keeping them from doing it, she thought.
Please Goddess, don’t let my friends be hurt.
She put on the dean clothes that lay on the cot, and let herself out.
Numair was right down the hall, in a room filled with books. The skin around his face was slack and gray; his nose thrust out like the prow of a sinking ship. His crisp mane was matted with sweat, his face drenched with it. Checking the water jug on the table beside him, she saw it was empty. She went back and brought her own water to him. This time, when she came in, his eyes were open. They were dull and tired.
“Thanks,” he whispered as she poured water for him. His hands shook when she gave him the tankard.
“Wait.” She supported his head and shoulders, steadying his grip on the tankard with her free hand. “You’re still keeping those dampeners off?”
He nodded as he drank, and gasped when he was done.
It hurt to talk casually when he looked half-dead. You won’t help him if you turn into a baby, she told herself sternly. “Can I get you some food?”
I’ll just throw up.” He smiled. “How do you like your first siege?”
“That’s very funny,’ she told him sourly. “I’m so glad you’ve hung on to your sense of humor. Only think how scared I’d be if you hadn’t.”
He closed his eyes and smiled. “That’s my magelet.”
“Can’t you let up awhile?”
He shook his head. “The healers. They’re still going. Daine—this afternoon. You said the dragon can think? It’s educated?”
“She. She’s educated. Even the griffins are like my animals, with all that’s in their heads jumbled together higgledy-piggledy. Not her. She’s read things in scrolls—I saw them in her mind”
“Amazing,” he whispered. “I’d heard stories—just never believed them.”
“What stories?”
“They’re mages. Well, we saw that. She came right up on us. Even you didn’t hear her until she was close. And she vanished. Do you hear her now?”
Daine listened, hard. “No, sir. But like you said—I didn’t hear her until the last.” She pulled off his boots and put a cushion under his feet. More cushions went behind his head. She noticed that he still clung to the toy Thom had put in his hand. “There’s got to be something else I can try. I let the land animals go. They’ll do some damage. There’s not enough creatures on the ships to work with, though. It’s mostly rats out there. I can’t work with rats. I’ve tried, but they don’t even want to listen to me.”
“Whales? Ask them to swim up under the barges—capsize them. The catapults are the biggest danger. Then the red robes on the galleys.”
She thought it over. “If whales’re out there, I can’t hear ’em. They’re not in range.” She chewed on a thumbnail until he knocked her hand away. “I’m fair tired too. The dragon sucked me almost dry.” This time she didn’t even get the thumbnail to her mouth before he grabbed her wrist. “Pity I can’t reach the sea. If there’s a cold spot in the cellars—”
“Find George. He’ll figure out a way to get you to the water.”
She saw another danger. “What if the mages on the ships catch me?”
“It’s a risk, but you stand a better chance than anyone with the Gift. Only a very few can detect wild magic. It’s a skill mages in Carthak are discouraged from acquiring. Remember, they think it’s old wives’ tales. If someone out there could sense it, he’d have a difficult time convincing the others. If you’re detected, you can escape among the seals and sea lions.” He sighed. “I know it’s dangerous, and I hate to drive you this way, but—we need a miracle. I’m hoping you can come up with one.”
She got up. “Wish me luck.” She hesitated, then kissed his cheek.
He gave her a feeble hug. “Luck, magelet.”
Daine looked down the length of rock at the castle’s rear. George and Evin stood by with ropes and a sling. “You sent folk down this way before?”
“It’s a better ride than it looks,” the baron assured her. “They won’t see you from the water, because you’re goin’ down a rock chimney. When you return, just get in the sling and give the rope three big tugs”—he showed her what he meant—“and three little tugs. I’ll have someone I trust on watch here for you. Got it?”
She nodded and fitted herself into the rope sling between the two men. “Good thing I grew up in the mountains and I’m not afraid of heights,’ she said with false cheerfulness, easing herself out over the edge of the wall. “I told you this is a long shot, didn’t I?”
“Several times,” the baron assured her. “Don’t worry, I’m expert in long shots, youngling. Been takin them all my life.”
“What will you do for light?” asked Evin.
She looked at him in surprise. “I don’t need any. There’s the moon, after all. And I see well in the dark.”
George nodded. “Try to be topside when the fun starts in the mornin’.”
She smiled up at him. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The trip down the rock chimney seemed over almost before it started. At the bottom she found herself on the beach. Here she climbed out of the sling, pulled off her boots, and rolled up her breeches. At a brisk walk, she followed a strip of beach north, along the cliff face. She needed a place where she could anchor herself among the rocks. It wasn’t her intention to be washed out to sea.
Finally she reached a spot that looked good. The cliffs were at her back. To the north lay more rock. The castle bluff shielded her from all sight of the enemy fleet, riding at anchor in the mouth of the Swoop’s cove.
Gripping her badger’s claw for luck, she wedged herself between two boulders and lowered herself into the ocean. She had to bite a lip to keep from shrieking at the cold wetness. Within seconds she was numb to the waist. For good measure she immersed her hands and sent her magic out.
The salt water made her feel as if the dragon had never drained her magic. Her mind raced past tumbles of rocks and kelp, past quite a few sunken ships. So that’s why this is Pirate’s Swoop, she thought. They swooped out from the cove.
She found the seals first and called a greeting. They wanted to play, but she explained she hadn’t the time just now. On she went, beyond her normal range and into deep water.
Whale songs rose all around her to fill the sea with their magic. She had found a pod of nearly forty blue whales. Three quarters of them were adults, each at least eighty feet long and weighing over one hundred and forty tons. Daine faltered, awed by their magnificence, then called,—Hello!—
In a cave high over Daine’s head, the dragon stopped nuzzling her little one. It was the mage-child, the one who had restored her baby to life when she had thought it dead in her body. The dragon couldn’t mistake that atrocious accent.
Whales came into Daine’s mind, huge shadows staring at a girl-shadow. One—a hundred feet if he’s an inch, Daine thought, a bit frightened—moved ahead of the others with grace and majesty.—Who calls!—
This was nothing like talking with land animals, seals, or fish. Whales seemed wise, in their own fashion, and words only partly conveyed the things they said. To their question she gave them what she was, or how she saw herself, and image embroidered with feeling and ideas.
They were amused.—Why do you seek us out, tiny human calf?—
With images and ideas she explained the siege, the Carthakis, the release of the Stormwings and the dragon.—They want to take our freedom and they’re hurting my friends. I came to ask your help. If four or five of you came up under the barges and overset them, and maybe one or two of the large boats, we’d have a chance. I know it’s a big favor to ask. I can’t say they won’t hurt you—maybe they can. But you’re my best hope, you see.—
The chief whale heard her out politely. His answer, when it came, blasted into her mind and ears.—No.—
She barely remembered that she was out in the open in time to choke back a scream. She bit deep into her own wrist to smother it.
—You don’t understand!—How could she explain so they would care? She gave them Onua’s wry humor, Thayet’s leadership, Miri’s love of the sea, George’s intelligence, Numair’s curiosity.—The enemy kills humans and animals who never hurt anyone. They brought monsters here. (She gave them spidrens as well as Stormwings—it never occurred to her to add the griffins or the dragon.) We have calves there—link ones who depend on us to keep them safe. (Roald, Kally, and Thom were as fresh in her mind as if they stood with her. She offered them to these distant, cold judges.) You wouldn’t let your calves die. Grown humans may hunt you but not these. Help me save them!—
The dragon looked at her newborn. Knowing the kit was dead in her belly had sent her in a rage to attack the humans. She had blamed them for stealing her from home at the start of her labor, had blamed them for the magic voyage that had killed the life in her. Her kit, her first, had been dead—until this girl-child had put her hands on her breast. The pangs had begun again—her kit had been born. Dragons do not give birth lightly, do not face the loss of young lightly.
—You do not understand, mortal calf,—said the whale leader.
—Explain it to me, please?—She struggled to be polite. There had to be a way she could talk them around.
—We will not fight or kill. Not for your cause—not for any cause. Violence against higher life-forms is disgusting. For centuries the People have vowed that the taking of a higher life is an abomination.—
—But Miri told me, you’ve attacked ships that kill your kind….—
—No.—Once again the force of the reply hurt.—There have been accidents. There are times when one will go insane. Always, when the one who has fought understands what took place, that one starves himself, herself to death, to pay for the sin. We will not fight. We will not kill—
She had never heard such absolute refusal. It sounded in the marrow of her bones and through her nerve endings. Under its pressure her head began to pound again.—We’ll die, then. Their machines will break our walls—they’ll have us out as an octopus has a hermit crab out of its shell. My friends, in the air, on the land—they’ll have died for nothing.—
—You should not have asked them to fight.—
—I didn’t ask them! They wanted to—because they’re my friends!—
—There is no good reason to fight. There is no good reason to kill.—The whales’ voices were growing faint.
—Where are you going?—Tears rolled down her cheeks. They were her last chance, and they wouldn’t even listen.
—If ships are here, there is a chance of an accident. We cannot accept that risk. We go, far from this place where you make a killing-ground—
—I didn’t make it!—she yelled, furious.—They came to me!—
The whales were gone. The only sound in her mind and ears was the lapping of waves. It would happen again, just like at home. The queen would die before she’d let Carthakis take her or her children. Numair would burn out. The raiders would win. If she’d learned her lessons better, if she’d explained things at the palace instead of waiting till the badger came to her at the beach… She put her face in her hands and sobbed.
If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us, that you want. It sounded now, so clearly that she looked up, trying to find the badger. He was nowhere to be seen.
If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us, that you want. That’s what he had told her. Maybe she could catch up to the whales, convince them. Maybe she could bring them under her will. Surely that was like calling anyone she wanted to, wasn’t it?
It’s wrong to force the whales to fight, a small voice in her mind argued. Not when they hate it so.
I won’t let my people die, she told the voice. I can’t.
She took a deep breath, and another. She let go of herself, opening her mind entirely to wild magic. Grabbing her up, the copper fire took her west.
She rolled along the ocean’s bottom like a wave, hearing each click and gurgle the sea creatures made. Her awareness spread in a half circle, hearing the fleet, finding the departing whales. She would have talked to them, but the copper fire wrapped tighter around her mind and kept moving. Deeper and deeper the ocean floor sank. With dreamy surprise she slid around a patch of islands—where had they come from?
She dropped into ice water that was black as ink in her mind. In the west, past the islands, he lay—ship killer, man-eater, old as time. The mages had missed him when they sealed the Divine Realms, centuries ago. He had lain on the bottom, the ultimate predator, dining on whales and human ships. His immense tentacles, each a mile long, stirred with interest.
The kraken had never seen a little fish like her.
Daine stared at him, aghast. His was the body of an octopus with far too many arms, his mantle a mile and a half across.
—I will kill any fleet you like, little fish.—His voice was filled with soft, deadly good humor.—You were talking to the whales. Pacifists, all of them—enough to make me vomit Just show me where those nasty raiders are. I can guarantee they won’t trouble you for long.—
—You’d never make it on time,—she said, to cover her real thought: I could never get rid of him!
—Leave that to me. Come, my dear—this is no time to be squeamish.—
Deals with demons, she thought nervously. It’s a deal with a demon…. Wait—what about Numair? Once he returns to full strength, he’ll be a match for this monster. I hope he will, anyway, because this kraken is the only hope I have left.
Please Goddess and Horse Lords, let this be a good choice!
Daine thrust what she knew of the fleet at the giant thing, and fled as his laugh echoed all around her. She flashed through the water faster than she would have believed possible. It was hard to say what she was doing: running from the kraken or racing to get to the Swoop before sunrise.
It was too late. When she opened her eyes, the incoming tide was up to her chin, and the sky overhead was pink.
She struggled, fighting to get her tightly wedged body out from between the rocks. Everything was numb; her hands couldn’t get a purchase anywhere. How can I reach the castle, let alone the deck? she wondered, panting as she tried to free herself. And what can I tell them, anyway? If those islands are what I think they are, they’re the Copper Isles, four days’ sail out. If I didn’t dream that whatsits, that kraken, there won’t be anything here in four days for him to eat—
Curved silver bars closed around her middle, gently. She looked up into the dragon’s catlike eyes.
—I will take you to you friends, little mage.—
The dragon wrapped her other forepaw around the one that gripped Daine. The girl held on to those silver claws, running her hands over them in awe. There was a tremendous jolt, and they were airborne. She screamed in delight to see the earth fall away below them, forgetting briefly all she had been through, and all that was coming, in the joy of flight. Behind her she could feel the surge of the dragons wings as they soared higher and higher. To their left she saw the enemy, and the Stormwing that dropped to Mahil Eddace’s ship. The red robes in the galleys and transports sat or lay at the prows of theirs ships, many clutching their heads in their hands. Slaves, bare but for a loincloth and a collar, ministered to the red robes.
Her appearance—the dragons appearance—had dramatic results. Men pointed and screamed; archers scrambled for their weapons. One red robe got up and did something that involved waving hands. It resulted in a yellowish cloud that boiled their way.
—Amateurs,—the dragon said coldly. When the cloud reached them, she blew on it, and it vanished. She banked gracefully, heading for the Swoop. Tiny figures on the deck pointed at them, while any of the archers who might be in range had their bows up. Someone on the deck recognized Daine and called an order. Slowly the weapons came down.
She peered at one of the dragon’s toes, examining the bone structure and the violet scales. (She picked up several tiny cuts on the scale edges, which were razor sharp.) “Excuse me—weren’t you red yesterday?”
—I was angry. We may change color, to suit our wills—or to reflect strong emotion.—The great creature hesitated, then went on,—I heard you speak to the whales.—
She swiveled to face her bearer. “You did? But these days nobody else hears when I’m talking to just one species.”
—That may be so, among mortal creatures.—(It occurred to Daine her rescuer was a snob.)—We are mages of the air.—Sounding anxious, she added,—Could you send me home? I do not understand how I came to be here, and I wish to be with my family.—
“We don’t know how,” Daine replied sadly as they descended. “We’re trying to learn, though. If you stay with us, well find a way to send you home—if we survive, that is.”
The dragon touched down, more gracefully than she had the day before, and released Daine. Onua, Roald, Kally, and Thom ran to hold her up as the great creature rose into the air and flew back along the cliff. Once more she vanished in midair.
“Any luck?” the baron asked as he and Thayet came over, their faces worn and exhausted. Daine looked around and saw Numair, seated on the wall. He waved a shaky hand.
“No,’ she told her audience quietly. “The whales said no.” She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Numair again. “There—there might be something, but—I don’t know. I don’t think it can be here in time. I’m sorry.”
The queen patted her arm. “You tried. You’ve done so much already. I don’t think the men from the camp outside the walls are fit to go into battle today, thanks to your friends.”
“The dragon?” George asked Daine.
“I don’t know. She’s not very strong. I could try and call her back—”
“Well, well. All the little pigs tidy in one pen.” Zhaneh Bitterclaws hovered overhead, just out of bow-shot for the deck’s guards. The Stormwing queen’s looks had not improved: her eye socket continued to ooze. Whatever other magic they’ve got, Daine thought to herself, healing isn’t part of it.
Daine glanced around for her own bow and quiver: they were in Numair’s lap. Thom sidled away from their group, backing up toward the mage with his hands open behind him. “What’s the answer, mortals? Will you surrender the three we want?”
“We surrender nothing to you and your handlers,” Thayet spat. “Tell them they’ve just bought my husband’s eternal enmity—and mine.”
“You won’t live long enough to care about enmity!” Bitterclaws snarled.
Something hard and something leathery pressed against Daine’s cold fingers. Thom had brought her bow, already strung, and her quiver. The girl’s numb muscles couldn’t respond fast enough. The Stormwing laughed and climbed away when she tried to get her bow into a firing position. Daine swore, flexing her hands to get them limber again.
“Children, get below!” Thayet snapped. They wavered, and the queen roared, “Now!” They obeyed at a run.
The girl looked seaward to find what had made the woman raise her voice so uncharacteristically. In the night, the four barges had been moved to the front, ahead of the ships, and each catapult was assembled and loaded with a stone ball. Two of them fired; the balls struck the cliff face below the tower with an earsplitting boom. The stone beneath their feet shook.
The two remaining barges shifted. Must be the sorcerers that move them, Daine thought, since there were no oars and no sails. Their catapults let fly. The first stone ball smashed into one of the other towers; the second hit the curtain wall. Already men were reloading the first two catapults.
The dragon, her scales flaming gold, dropped on them from what had looked like empty sky. She immediately put flight to the stories that her kind spat flame from their mouths. The fire came from her forepaws, and devoured the sails on Eddace’s flagship. Banking hard, she cut directly across the face of one of the catapults to seize the stone ball loaded in it. Her flight sagged from the weight of the stone, but only momentarily. She dropped it on the next barge. The flat boat immediately listed to the side.
Numair propped himself on Daine’s shoulder. “Wasn’t she red yesterday?”
“They change color. Numair, she’s not big enough.”
“Maybe she’s big enough to stop them. And it’s justice, my magelet. They’re the ones who brought her here in the first place.”
Archers shot at the dragon uselessly. The red robes tried their magic, but like Numair’s it washed off her. She hurled fire at a transport, burning it entirely, before heading back to the catapults.
Stormwings broke out of the woods on land and streaked to defend the ships. Daine watched, sobbing, as their claws cut deep into the dragons sides. “Can’t you help?” she demanded, forgetting the state he was in.
“I wish I could. Call her back this way, if you can. Our archers can swat the Stormwings away from her”
Daine called, hard. The dragon ignored her to fall on the red robe at the prow of Eddace’s vessel. With him in her grip, she rose into the air and dropped him among a knot of Stormwings.
They exploded. Scared for the lovely creature though she was, Daine cheered as the other red robes fled to more protected parts of their ships.
Another catapult fired. Moving fast, the dragon was on the missile and had it in her talons. This time, when she dropped it onto a barge, she waited until she was much higher over it. When the stone hit, it went straight through the wooden bottom. With the other stone balls off-balance and rolling everywhere, the barge began to sink.
“Oh, gods,” Numair whispered. “Call her in, Daine. Quick!”
“She won’t listen! What’s wrong?”
“They’re loading the slings with liquid fire. Call her in fast!”
Daine screamed with all the wild magic she could find.
The dragon’s only reply was a vision of a cave, high above the sea, with light coming out of its mouth.
“She won’t come,” Daine whispered, and tried again.
The Stormwings gathered before the dragon, forcing her back. She fought to rise above them or fall below, but they blocked her. At the right moment, the two remaining catapults fired—not stones this time, but balls of a clear, jellylike substance. They splattered over the dragon, and burst into flames.
She uttered an ear-tearing shriek that none who saw the battle would ever forget, and dropped. Her flaming body crashed into a barge, and sank it.
Daine wailed her grief. “I’ll kill them!” she screamed, putting an arrow to her bow with fingers that shook. “Let ’em get near enough and I’ll kill them!”
The catapult that remained in action fired. Its stone thudded into the wall at the base of the tower. “Fall back!” George ordered their guards, who obeyed. Onua, Daine, Numair—lets go!”
Numair looked out to sea and froze, his hand locked tight on Daine’s shoulder. His eyes opened so wide they started to bulge. “What dice did the Graveyard Hag roll?”
Someone on the wall below screamed as a huge, black tentacle darted out of the water to grip the catapult that had just fired. Clutching it as a baby might hold a rattle, the tentacle yanked the catapult and the barge it was fastened to onto its side.
Another tentacle shot out of the water beside Eddace’s flagship. Up and up it soared, until it reached the crow’s nest. Delicately, with precision, it gripped the nest—and the man inside—and snapped it off the mast.
“Friend of yours?” Numair asked. His voice was very quiet, but she could hear him perfectly. No one at the castle was making a sound.
“Not exactly,” she whispered. “I guess he moves faster than I thought.”
A third tentacle crawled over the rim of the last barge, the one the dragon had knocked off-balance. It snaked all the way across the bed, gripped the opposite rim, and flipped the entire thing over.
Daine gulped. “Oh, dear—I think he’s going to be nasty.”
“How big did you say it was?” George had come to stand with them, his face white under its tan.
“I didn’t,” she replied.
Tentacles sprang up around the fleet like a forest of snakes, hemming it in. More tentacles groped into the boats, to begin a systematic destruction.
Numair straightened, blinking. “The dampening spells are breaking up.”
Thayet had run to the opposite side of the deck, the part that looked out over the rest of the castle. “Listen!” she yelled.
Horn calls split the air. From the woods to the east came a company of the King’s Own and the rest of the Swoop’s guards, the Lioness at their head. From the northern woods came another company of the King’s Own. They fell on the raiders outside the wall, as the Stormwings converged on that battle.
Onua, Thayet, and George raced down the stairs to reach the curtain wall, where they’d have a better view. Numair sagged to the floor of the deck. “I’m all used up,” he told Daine, smiling at her. His eyes fluttered shut.
“Rest quick,” she told him. “You and Lady Alanna are going to have to get rid of Himself, out there.”
He fluttered his hand at her—of course, of course—and let it fall. Within seconds he was out cold.
To her surprise, she heard the sound of hooves on stone. Cloud emerged from the stair, her withers streaked with sweat. I have been looking all over for you, the pony told her crossly, coming to sniff Daine from top to toe. First they tell me you got sick, then they tell me you went down to the ocean, then—uh-oh.
Daine looked up. Zhaneh Bitterclaws had returned.
“I suppose you think very well of yourself, girlie. I suppose you think you did something wonderful, calling up that greedy-guts.” She jerked her head in the direction of the kraken, who continued his breakfast of ships.
The girl shook with fury. She hadn’t taken her arrow off the string, but it would do no good. Even supposing she could aim her bow, she had lost the strength to draw it. Numair wasn’t the only one to be all used up.
The Stormwing queen knew it too. She fluttered closer. “You’re mine,’ she said with a grin. “I’ll be on you before you make the stair. And maybe I’ll cut up your long friend here too, before I go. You think about that a moment—it’ll be your fault that he dies.”
“Liar,” Daine spat. “Folk like you always lay the blame on somebody else. If I’d listened to talk like that, I’d’ve let myself get killed by my own people months ago.”
“They should have killed you, girlie.” The Stormwing drew in closer yet. “You call me a monster—what are you? My gods made me. You’re just a freak. All you do is get your friends killed, like that poor dragon. They’d be better off if you just threw yourself off the cliff right now.”
Cloud leaned against Daine’s thigh. Suddenly the girl was filled with energy; she was as fresh and strong as if she’d had a full nights sleep. Lightning fast, she swung her bow up and loosed.
The arrow went clean through Zhaneh Bitterclaws’ neck as the creature gave voice to a choked scream. She dropped, trying to claw the arrow out of her flesh, until her body smashed to the rocks below. As she tumbled end over end to the sea, her own wing feathers cut her to pieces.
Daine and Cloud stuck their heads over the low wall, watching the Stormwing die in silence. Finally the girl straightened. Her newfound strength was gone. “Is she right?” Daine asked her pony.
She isn’t, Cloud said firmly. Your friends all make their own choices to live or die for you. I’ve yet to see you force death on a friend.
Carefully, muscles aching, Daine unstrung her bow and coiled the string, tucking it into her pocket. “Did I know you could do that?” she asked. “Give me strength like you did?”
Of course not, was the pony’s smug reply. We People don’t have to give you all our secrets.
“Now she tells me.” Daine sat with Numair and curled up against him. “Wake me in time for supper,” she told Cloud tiredly.
Of course, the mare said, knowing her human was already asleep. There was a blanket where Numair had been sitting when the dragon returned Daine to the castle. Cloud dragged it over, covering the man and the girl. She assumed a guard stance near the two of them and waited for the rest of the fighting to end.