Preece shrugged.
Ileth stood up and divided her meal between the three.
Galia sighed. “Ileth, they’ll just be starving again tomorrow.”
The three boys squatted down in the rain, bolting the food like dogs, watching the dragonriders and their resting dragons. One of them pointed to the wing tenting and said something and the other nodded.
Preece got up. “I can’t sit here and eat with them staring at me like this.” He handed each of them some bread and nuts.
“Turn your back if it bothers you,” Galia said, tearing off another bit of smoked fish and eating it with relish.
“Maybe they’re escaped p-prisoners,” Ileth said.
“No,” Preece said. “Galantine prisoners have ink drawings on their faces. Dug into the skin, like, so it can’t wash out. Stands out. I’ve seen the work gangs on reconnaissance. They fell trees and build roads and whatnot for Galantine army camps.”
“Galia, you’re just going to—going to sit there and eat in front of them?” Ileth asked.
“I didn’t invite them over here. They can strain my crap for walnuts after we leave.”
“Galia, what a thing to say!” Preece said.
“What?” Galia said. “I’ve done it. I grew up in the gutters. My brother and I would hunt rats. We’d eat ’em and collect the bounty on the heads. But they were scarce in winter. Rich folks have crap full of seeds and shells.”
“I don’t believe it!” Preece said. “Your handwriting, it’s an educated hand.”
Galia shrugged. “So I learned to write fair and round. Doesn’t mean I didn’t grow up eating rats.”
Ileth couldn’t reconcile the accomplished, confident Galia with a child starving in the gutters.
The smallest of the boys crept closer to Ileth. He began to talk, slowly, pointing to the dragon.
“Now what?”
Ileth still wasn’t getting much of it, but she thought she got the gist with the help of the boy’s pantomimes. “He wants to come with us. Leave with us. He thinks we’re going back to the Vales. Says he’ll be a servant. Fix shoes. He’s not bottom? No, not heavy. Light, easy to carry, I think he means. On the dragon.”
“Doesn’t know we’re going farther into the ‘Golden Land,’” Preece said.
Ileth shook her head no. The boy looked crestfallen but perked up when she retrieved a sack of dried apple slices.
The thunderstorm passed but the rain continued, light and steady. Galia wondered if the river ever flooded, and Preece assured her that the dragons could fly or swim them to safety. Lightning struck nowhere near them, and the boys repaid them for the food by finding a few sticks of dry firewood. It wasn’t much. They’d picked the sandy island pretty clean on other explorations, it seemed. It was too dark to continue by the time the rain stopped, so they bedded down for the night.
By morning, word had gotten around that there were dragons about, and they had a few curious locals lining the riverbank to watch them take off. Their audience neither cheered nor threw stones as the dragons took off, using the river as a flightway. They just watched. The wretched boys went back into hiding.
The sky spanned bright above them, nearly windless, and they were all sore from the previous day and an uncomfortable night in the wet. They had changed a few items of clothing to keep out the worst of the wet, but it was still uncomfortable for Ileth thanks to her damp stockings beneath her boots. She flexed and pointed to keep circulation in her limbs. But she was learning that flying came with a certain determination to reach your destination, and she faced her soreness and discomfort in the same way an athlete running a long race might—just a price that must be paid in order to finish properly.
They crossed more hills, saw a lake shaped like a bent key that was another landmark, and crossed high, piney hills that some might call mountains. Ileth expected more dry plains on the other side as this seemed to be the Galantine pattern: well-watered farming country full of meandering roads and little villages and dry high plains with herds and sparse forests alternating, but on the other side of the mountains they came to a land that seemed a little of both.
Preece put both arms up with elbows out, the signal for destination in sight.
They passed over a land that reminded Ileth of a bowl. High mountains, ranges that rivaled those in the Vales, ran to the north and curved down the east and smoked a little—those must be volcanoes, which she’d heard of but never seen. The center of the bowl was a deep, green swampy area full of little tufts and stands of timber, and in a ring around that were thick fields of what looked like grain and grass. She guessed it was cattle country. Herds thick enough to color the topography themselves made splotched patterns like spilled paint on the grassland. They overflew cattle of a breed unfamiliar to Ileth. She was used to smaller brown-and-white milk cows. These were mountains of muscle and hide and horn and looked as though they might turn and charge a dragon rather than run. They passed over a town with three plazas—their last landmark before the destination itself—and turned north toward one of the volcanoes.
Ileth saw a winding loop of river coursing around a rich, green spot of land, with lines of trees forming a tremendous X away from a long stone house with a flat roof and several barns and outbuildings discreetly shielded by another line of trees. There was a small pond near the house and she spotted geese and a few swans. She had a good view of a formal garden near the house. It had a fountain, walls, and squared-off walkways, all neat and well tended.
They circled and circled again, then descended toward a vast green field near what looked like an oval arena roofed with canvas tenting. There were barns and grain enclosures near it. She wondered if it was a theater, or perhaps a bear- or bull- or even convict-killing pit such as appeared in stories of Hypatia in its decadence. It wasn’t a large enough arena for even a good-sized town, but it seemed out of place on the grounds of even a manor house such as this.
As they came in to land, Ileth saw the outline of another dragon behind a roofed horse arena. Greater even than Mnasmanus, the dragon must be Fespanarax: the object of their trip.
Hael Dun Huss watched them set down. He appeared relaxed and tan from the sun. He said a few quiet words of Drakine to Mnasmanus, then looked at Preece.
“You made good time, Preece,” Dun Huss said. “Hello, wingman. Cunescious, enjoy your first trip over the Galantine lands? More peaceful than mine. Ileth, you are a pleasant surprise. Did you make apprentice yet?”
“No, sir,” Ileth said.
“Well, we shall have to see about that one of these days, won’t we. Watch, here comes our host.”
A strange sort of riding contraption pulled by a high-stepping horse wearing a woven sunbonnet with holes cut for its ears approached. Its two wheels were huge, the largest Ileth had ever seen unless you counted mill wheels grinding out grain. A man of indeterminate but not elderly years in a bright green coat with black lapels and a shirt with a high collar of snow-pure white that matched his equally white wig drove the thing, and drove it well, albeit at a sedate pace. As it approached, Ileth saw a hunting dog and what looked like some kind of spotted wild cat up on the wide, couchlike seat of the riding cart with the driver. The dog looked happy, the cat bored.
“The Baron is fond of animals,” Dun Huss said quietly. “Indulge him.”
She saw something else behind and wondered what else might be in the cart menagerie but realized it was just the heads of two servants. The cart wheeled up and the driver had the huge horse perform a pretty turn on one wheel. Ileth was fascinated by the double springs connecting the axle and the seat. It looked well balanced and the stays were arranged well to make things easy on the horse. The horse’s tall body was combed and almost gleamed in the sun, without a trace of collar or saddle sores, and the small amount of dirt on the hooves just served to show off how well tended they were.