Chapter Twenty-Nine
"Come along," Shavala told the mule, which had come to an abrupt halt when it noticed the dragon's corpse on the far side of the camp. "It's dead, it can't hurt you. We'll get you some oats and then get your leg fixed."
She managed to convince the limping animal to follow her the last fifty yards to the spot where Bili, a ballista crew member who'd worked as a stablehand back in Four Roads, was caring for the four mules Shavala had brought back earlier, along with half a dozen others that had returned on their own.
"I promised him some oats," she told the man. "Is Treya awake yet?"
"I dun think so, Miss, uh, Miss Elf," Bili stammered.
Boktar joined them. "It's hurt?" he asked, looking over the mule.
"His right foreleg," Shavala said. "Can Priest Conley do something about it?"
"Conley's not in any shape for more healing right now." Boktar felt along the mule's leg. "Doesn't seem too bad," he said. "It can wait until tomorrow if need be."
"I had to kill one that fell into a ditch," Shavala admitted. "Two of its legs were broken, and some ribs. It couldn't stand up and it was in too much pain to just leave it there until Treya could come."
The stoneborn man blew out his breath. "Well, we lost a ballista and one of the supply wagons, so if we have to, we can get by without as many mules. We need to find as many as we can, though--they can still carry supplies, and we'll need to salvage whatever we can find from the wagon and spread the load around."
The mule's carrying capacity wasn't why Shavala had been saddened, but she supposed Boktar had to think about that sort of thing. She'd tell Corec or Treya about it instead. They might understand... or at least pretend to. Luckily, with Leena's warning, there'd been time to unyoke the mule teams. If the animals had been forced to flee in tandem with their yoke mates, more would have died.
"I saw more tracks," she said. "I'll go out again later, but some have probably run too far for us to get them back."
Boktar nodded. "We have to camp here until we find more of them anyway, so I'll send a few men out in different directions. They might get lucky."
"Where's Corec?"
"He's got a crew looking for rocks to build a cairn for the men who died. We're too far from Four Roads to get the bodies back home, and he didn't want to burn them."
"I'll go look for him," Shavala said.
She found Corec in a dry creek bed west of the dragon's body, digging up wide, flat stones and setting them in a pile. Two knights were doing the same farther down the bed, while three of the armsmen were then carrying the stones closer to the camp.
"I found more of the mules," she said.
"That's good." Corec's voice was dull.
"You sound tired. You should take a break."
"I wanted to keep busy," he said with a glance at the three blanket-covered mounds laid out side by side near the camp. "And I don't want to just leave them lying there."
She took him by the hand and led him to the low pile of stones he'd been gathering. He sat down, which brought his head below hers. She wouldn't have to crane her neck to look up at him.
"Other people can take over," she said.
He stared off into the distance. "I'm the one who got them killed. The knights knew how dangerous it was, at least from books, but the others had no idea what they were getting into."
"It was the dragon that killed them," she reminded him. "Not you." Half the reason she'd gone searching for the mules on her own was to give herself time for her own mourning, both for the three lost men and for the dragon itself, which had only become aggressive because of some unknown instinctual imperative. Its end had been terrible, dying slowly and in agony as it was stabbed over and over.
As a hunter, Shavala understood death, but at least then it served a purpose. The d
orvasta
didn't hunt dragons as food because there was debate between the druids on whether they should be considered thinking creatures, but even among humans, dragon meat wasn't typically considered to be edible.
"I know, but--"
She tilted her head to the side. "And didn't you warn everyone it would be dangerous?" Shavala hadn't been around while Corec had been training the men, but Treya and Ellerie had told her about it.
He didn't answer, but simply leaned his head against her chest and held her around the waist. That was different--he'd been careful not to show affection in public since she'd rejoined the group. Their friends would understand, but the knights and armsmen were aware of his relationship with Katrin, and he hadn't wanted to try to explain anything more complicated than that. Humans worried about the strangest things.
Shavala laid a hand on his head and waited until he stood up, letting go of her.
"You're right," he said. "Someone else can take over for a while. I could use some rest."
She accompanied him back toward the camp but paused as they were passing by the dragon. There were cut marks along its scales that hadn't been there after the battle.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I had to stop some of the men from hacking at it--I didn't want them hurting themselves. Kevik and Georg cut the teeth out instead, and promised one to each of them so they'd have something to take home. I sawed off the horns, too, in case we need proof the dragon's dead."
Shavala wasn't sure how she felt about that. Hunting trophies for the sake of trophies was wrong, but if the creature had to die anyway, at least those small parts of it could be used. And some traditional
dorvasta
