The Dragon Keeper

Page 168

“Mercor!” she called again, and despite how he ignored her, she demanded, “What do you remember about the Elderlings greeting us when we reached Kelsingra? I know that we circled the city three times, to let them know that we were arriving—”

“I remember how they would sound trumpets from the city towers when they saw us. Trumpets of silver and horns of brass, to warn the fishing vessels to clear the depths of the river. ” This came not from Mercor, but from Ranculos. The red dragon’s silvery eyes spun with sudden pleasure. “That just now came to me, when you spoke of circling the city three times. ”

“I remember that!” Veras surged through the water suddenly, struggling to catch up with them. The gold stippling on her green body, so often obscured by mud and dust, shone now.

“I didn’t,” Sintara admitted quietly. “But I remember landing in the river, and going down into the water until it was dark. The bottom was sandy. And I remember wading out, up onto the bank. There were always some Elderlings waiting for us when we arrived. ”

She halted, hoping someone else would say something. But no one did, and Mercor trudged stoically on.

“I remember that something pleasant came next. Some special welcome . . . ” She let the thought trail away invitingly. No one spoke. The only sounds were the eternal hiss of the river’s motion, and the splashes of the dragons and their heavy breathing as they moved against it. Another snag, not quite as large as the first, loomed ahead of them. Sintara knew a moment of deep discouragement. She was already tired.

Suddenly Mercor lifted his head. His nostrils flared, and then he halted in midstride. He looked all around himself, surveying the wide expanse of river to his right and the dense forest to his left. Then he gave a sudden huff of breath. An abbreviated ruff of toxic quills around his neck stood out, blue white against the gold of his body.

“What is it?” Veras demanded. Then she, too, halted and looked around.

“Riverpig,” Sestican said. “I smell riverpig dung. ”

As if by naming them he had summoned them, the creatures suddenly burst from the water. Their hides were gray as the river water, their hair long and straggling as roots. They had been clustered in the lee of the snag, their hairy, rounded backs in the sun, sheltered from the current’s push by the fallen trunk.

Sintara made no conscious decision. Some other dragon, ancient beyond reckoning, prompted her. Her head shot out on the end of her neck, mouth wide. She’d targeted the largest one she could reach. The riverpig reacted an instant before her teeth sank into him. He tried to dive under the water. Her teeth sank into him and her jaws latched shut, but she had not bitten him as deeply as she’d meant to. A correct bite would have sent her teeth sinking into his vertebrae, paralyzing him. Instead, she gripped a layer of fat, thick hide, and hair. The heady succulence of fresh, hot blood in her mouth nearly dazed her.

Then the riverpig in her jaws erupted in a savage struggle for his life.

All around her, other dragons were similarly engaged. Some still pursued pigs, trumpeting as they darted their heads after the squealing prey. Fast in the water, the round-bellied creatures were less agile in the shallows and up on the foliage-tangled riverbank. Dragons slammed against her as they sought prey of their own, and she was nearly knocked off her feet when three riverpigs rammed into her, trying to get past her to deeper water.

Those events barely registered on her mind. Never before had she gripped live prey in her jaws. Her ancestral memories of hunting were mostly of diving onto cattle or other prey, slamming them to the earth so they were half stunned when she darted her head in for the killing bite. The creature in her jaws was desperate, very alive, and in his home element. He struggled madly so that her head whipped side to side on the end of her long neck. The weight of his body dragged her head into the water. She instinctively closed her nostrils and lidded her eyes. She braced her front feet in the mucky river bottom and struggled to lift her prey out of the water. For an instant, she succeeded. He dangled from her jaws, squealing wildly, his sharp cloven hooves striking out wildly at her. He waved his head with its diminutive tusks at her, but couldn’t reach her. She caught a breath.

But she could barely hold him up.

She should have been stronger. Her neck should have been thick with the developed muscles of a hunting predator, her shoulders heavy. Instead, she thought with disgust, she was as slack-muscled as a grain-fed cow. She should not have any problem with prey of this size. But if she opened her jaws for a better grip, he would break free of her, and while she gripped him as she did, he was battering her with his struggles. She needed to stun him. He pulled her head under the river’s surface, and she was not quick enough to close her nostrils. She snorted in water.