He poured a handful of dry dirt over the scale, shook it off, and then stowed it in the saddlebags before returning to Muckmaw’s head and body.
He’d just started to wrap the head in his ruined cloak when a pair of voices echoed across the shifting water. He looked up. A small coracle was approaching, and in it, two men working the paddles. Night fishers, drawn by the noise and light.
A wave of exhaustion passed through Murtagh. He was out of energy to deal with more problems. Nevertheless, he squared his shoulders and, with his left hand, reached behind the bulk of Muckmaw’s body and grabbed Zar’roc, careful to keep the sword hidden.
“Don’t make any sudden movem—” he said, glancing at Thorn.
The dragon had vanished. Murtagh stiffened, but then he searched with his mind and realized that Thorn had simply dropped back into the shadows behind the lake and was lying flat among the brambles that grew along the top of the banks.
For a creature so large, he could be remarkably quiet.
Murtagh looked back at the boat.
“Ho there!” called one of the men when they were about fifty feet from shore. Grey streaked his beard, and his shoulders were heavy from years of rowing. His companion put up his oars, lifted an oil lantern, and unshuttered it, releasing a key of yellow light that illuminated Murtagh, and Muckmaw’s corpse beside him.
Murtagh shaded his eyes with his free hand. He could see the men gaping at him. He could only imagine what he looked like, covered in mud, blood, and fish slime.
“Wh-who goes?” said the greybeard, stuttering slightly.
The other man said, “We heard a commotion fit t’ raise th’ dead, but…”
In a soft voice to himself, Murtagh said, “But you kept away until it was over.” Then, louder: “Ho there! Muckmaw is dead.” He gestured at the corpse. “His head is mine, but do with the rest as you will.”
The fishermen neither moved nor spoke as Murtagh leaned Zar’roc against Muckmaw’s open belly—where they couldn’t see—and finished wrapping his tattered cloak around the sturgeon’s severed head. The length of shattered thigh bone buried in the fish’s brow stuck out through a hole in the cloth.
He straightened and slung the corner of the cloak over his shoulder.
“Who…who are y’, stranger?” said greybeard, his voice faint in the night air.
“Just a traveler,” said Murtagh. He turned his back on them, picked up Zar’roc while being careful to keep his body between the fishermen and the jeweled sword, and then dug his heels into the damp ground.
Step by step, he dragged the giant fish head into the brambles atop the bank. He heard the fishermen muttering to each other behind him, followed by splashing as they started for the shore.
Atop the bank, Murtagh cast a quick spelclass="underline" the same one he used to hide Thorn when they flew. It wasn’t perfect—anyone who looked closely would see the air rippling like liquid glass where they stood—but it would be enough to hide them in the dark of night.
As soon as he reached Thorn, he dropped the corner of the cloak and scrambled up Thorn’s side into the saddle. “Go, go, go,” he whispered.
Thorn picked up Muckmaw’s head in his enormous talons and, silent as a hunting owl, jumped across the moonlit field and glided on half-extended wings. He landed with a soft jolt and leaped again, this time with wings at their full spread. Two more leaps, and they were far enough from the lake that it was doubtful anyone would hear.
Whoosh! Thorn flapped once, and then again, and they were away, spiraling up into the starry sky.
CHAPTER VII
In Defense of Lies
I wanted to eat the fish, Thorn complained as they circled over Gil’ead.
I know, but there would have been no easy way to keep those men from wagging their jaws about you all across Gil’ead.
Who would believe them?
Murtagh chuckled, despite himself. Fair point. Still, do you really want to eat a fish that Durza meddled with?
Thorn huffed. No magic can survive the belly of a dragon.
Maybe you’re right, but better not to test it.
Should you warn those men?
If they’re so foolish as to eat Muckmaw, and they start growing antlers on their heads or somesuch, they have only themselves to blame. None of which seemed very likely to Murtagh.
Mmh. Well, I will need to hunt soon. My hunger grows.
After we leave Gil’ead, you can eat all the deer you want.
They landed several miles from the city, by the edge of a small stream. There, Murtagh scrubbed the dirt and slime from his hands and face. Every inch of his body felt disgustingly filthy.
Unhappy with the result, he stripped and washed again, this time sparing no skin.
He stood on the bank of the stream, bare as the day he was born, and looked to Gil’ead. Whipcords of smoke rose from the lights and lanterns and chimneys within the city, and they spread as they rose until they merged into a diffuse lens of ashen haze that hung over the assembled buildings. The lights below painted the bottom of the haze a sullen orange, as if the sky itself were a banked fire smoldering through the night.
Murtagh wanted to return with Muckmaw’s head then and there, but he knew if he went banging on the doors of Captain Wren’s garrison in the middle of the night, they were as like to throw him out as let him in. It was a risk he didn’t want to take when losing might mean Silna’s life.
“I hate to wait,” he said. “Maybe I could—”
No. Thorn slapped the ground with his tail, and somewhere a sleepy crow uttered an outraged squawk. Murtagh blinked, surprised, and turned to look Thorn in the face. You sleep. You need sleep. Sleep now.
“What if they move Silna, though? We might never—”
The day’s hunting is done. If you go, you’ll step wrong, get hurt—more hurt. Rest will help you hunt better.
Murtagh sighed and let his head fall back. “I know. I just hate to waste any time.”
His head vibrated as Thorn hummed. It is not waste if it helps.
A wry smile formed on Murtagh’s face. “You’re wiser than you look, for a big lizard.”
Thorn nudged him with his snout. And you’re as stubborn as you look.
“You’re right. But not tonight. Tonight I’ll bend my knee to your learned advice.”
Thorn snorted.
The night cold returned Murtagh’s attention to the task at hand. He submerged his clothes in the creek and left them soaking there, weighted down with stones. Then he wrapped himself in his blanket and sat huddled against Thorn’s warm belly while he ate one of his few remaining dried apples. His teeth chattered between bites.
When he finished, he and Thorn went to speak their true names, as was their nightly ritual. Thorn named himself first and without difficulty, but when Murtagh tried to do likewise, he found himself unable. Something felt amiss with his name as it had been, and thus he could not speak it, for to speak it would have been a falsehood in the ancient language.
Thorn waited patiently. It was not the first time this had happened. On occasion, one or the other of them—or both—had changed, and that change was reflected in their names. Were it a small difference, new understanding was often quick to come. But when a fundamental part of their selves shifted—as it had in Urû’baen, when they broke free of Galbatorix—then understanding could be elusive and hard-fought.