again when he sees that there’s nobody there. “Perhaps. Why?”
I turn around again and keep walking. “Are you friendly with other dragons?”
“‘Friendly’ is not a word one uses about us in any context,” he states. “But I have certain allies.”
The sound of running water is getting closer. “Allies that will fight along with you?”
“It depends,” Isualic says.
“Depends on whether you promise them a hoard?” I suggest. It’s not really something I care about, but I much prefer to decide the topic of conversation. And information about the dragons might come in handy at some time.
“Perhaps,” the dragon concedes.
“Or something else of value? Say, a woman?”
“A woman is not a hoard, you silly lesser being.”
I get down on all fours and put my ear to the ground. Oh yes, very close now.
“But she would have value to you.”
“Of course. A woman is a diversion, a pleasant break from the despair we face on this cursed rock, so beset with poverty. But there are so few women here, all so well protected. Only Dolly has nobody to watch over her.”
I walk five more paces, spot a smallish boulder, and push it so it rolls a pace or two away. And beneath it, I’m rewarded with the sight of crystal-clear water, running fast in a rock-lined tunnel, barely making any noise except the occasional clucking. I stick my whole hand down in the stream. It’s as cool as the melting snow we had recently.
The snow that fell during the… event.
My heart sinks, as it always does when that terrible day enters my mind. The fog, the cold. My confusion and concern. And then my panic when both the women were gone.
Why couldn’t Hani’ox’s sword have killed me?
I don’t deserve Dolly. I don’t deserve these strange, extraordinarily blissful days with her.
I failed the tribe. I failed! Why are the Ancestors doing this?
Picking up a smaller stone, I put it on the underground creek as a lid. No reason to expose this source of pure, clean water. It will make it much easier to live in the Factory. But still, my success withers immediately. My failure can’t be ignored.
I turn to walk back. Isualic is still there.
“They talk about your failure,” he says smoothly, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “I eavesdrop on her tribe sometimes. The women there talk about it every day. About you. Brank’ox the Fake. Who is not a dragon slayer. Who lost two women. Entrusted to him by the tribe. How many dragons have you met now? And how many have you slain?”
I walk up the hill, not looking at the dragon.
He lets me pass and makes no move to follow me. “They wonder why you think you deserve a woman like that. Aren’t there better and more deserving men? You know there are!”
I walk up the hill and look behind me before I open the door. The dragon is nowhere to be seen.
I get in and close the door securely, then lean my back to it and close my eyes.
That dragon.
If he would only say things that are clearly not true, I could just laugh.
But he’s right. The dragon is right. I failed. No other man in the tribe has.
Only I have.
Losing one woman back then would have been bad enough. A total disaster.
But I lost two. Both Mia and Eleanor.
And with Dolly, it must look like I’m trying for three.
26
- Dolly -
I keep whittling on the block of wood while I cook dinner. It’s almost finished, but now I have to make the hollowed-out inside smooth and see if I can make the walls really thin without punching a hole in them. I also need a lid for it.
The metallic banging from Brank’ox’s forge is harder today, somehow. Faster, too. As if he’s working on a particularly stubborn piece of steel.
I deem that the stew has boiled long enough, set the floor with leaves, cups, and wooden spoons, and look down into the depths. “Brank’ooox!”
Still just furious banging.
“Brank’ox!”
Finally, the noises stop and he comes climbing up the alien structures.
“You’re working hard,” I observe.
He doesn’t look at me. “There is good water outside. Not so far away.”
“Great! Shorter for you to walk. It was hard to find, right?”
He gives me a look that I can’t interpret. “Yes.”
His eyes are darker than I’ve seen them before.
I heap some stew onto his leaf and hold it up to him. “Is something wrong, Brank’ox?”
He takes it, but doesn’t eat, just looks out at the jungle.