It was March 21, the equinox, a day sacred to Shanta. The river was back, although Shannon explained that it wasn’t the Wabash, but a tributary. “This is about as far north as I’ve been,” he added. It was still cold and rainy, and they were a somber lot, tired, hurting, and beginning to talk about going home.
The river ran through a gray mist that all but concealed the forest on the other side. Shay’s signs pointed to a bridge just ahead. But the bridge was very high, and parts of it were missing.
“We can’t cross that.” said Silas.
All that remained of the middle of the bridge were a few connecting beams and a walkway. The walkway just stuck up there in the sky.
“We should quit here for the day,” said Shannon. “Give the horses a rest. Tomorrow we can figure out the next step.”
Nobody argued. There were no convenient buildings this time so they put up a couple of lean-to’s and crawled in. Avila checked her various patients and pronounced them fit, but insisted they take advantage of the early halt to sleep. “You especially,” she told Chaka, who had thrown off her fever. “In this weather it wouldn’t take much for you to go another round.”
They broke out one of the wineskins, and draped blankets over their shoulders. Shannon brought back some trout, to which they added biscuit, berries, and beans. Afterward Chaka complied with her doctor’s orders and closed her eyes. Silas was arguing that gods were necessary to the peace and order of society. “On the whole,” he said, “I don’t think I’d want them over for dinner. But they’re convenient for requiring people to perform their social duties.”
Avila sipped her wine thoughtfully and looked out across the river into the fogbanks. “And you, Quait? In what do you believe?”
“How do you mean?”
“I know you do not believe in the Goddess.”
“I never said that.”
“Your tone says it. Your opinions in other matters say it. So what being greater than Quait do you speak with when the lights go out?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. He glanced at Chaka, who must have looked asleep. And he lowered his voice. “I see people like her” he said, “and I think it’s unreasonable to demand anything more.”
Chaka did not hear Avila’s reply.
She was awakened by a hand on her shoulder and the smell of rabbit stew. “Hungry?” asked Quait.
The rain had stopped, and it was dark. The fire burned cheerfully several feet outside the lean-to.
“Yes. Save some for me?”
Quait passed her a bowl. “Big debate going on.”
Chaka heard animated voices. “Don’t tell me. The gods again.”
“Not this time. They’re trying to decide whether they want to try crossing the bridge or looking for a ford. Jon doesn’t think there is a ford within several days’ travel.”
“Why not build a raft and let the horses swim over?”
“Have you looked at the current?” He pressed a hand to her forehead. The hand was cool. “How do you feel?”
“Okay.”
He sat down beside her. “They keep changing their minds. But Silas is scared somebody’ll fall off the bridge.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Karik used the bridge. I guess we can. How about you?”
“It doesn’t look like a problem to me either. Of course, maybe that’ll change when we get on top of it.”
He bent toward her and pressed his lips against her cheek. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.
She did not pull away until his lips sought hers. Damn. “You’ll get what I have,” she said, feeling childish. He smiled and kissed her. It was a very gentle kiss, his lips only brushing hers, but it left her tingling.
“Eat,” he said, looking smug.
The stew was good. It warmed her and she felt her strength returning.
“I think I’m in love with you, Chaka Milana,” Quait whispered.
There was a sudden flurry of activity around the campfire that Chaka momentarily thought was caused by the declaration. But it was something else, because the others were standing up one by one and looking north across the river. They were pointing, and their jaws had gone slack.
Quait pulled away and looked back over his shoulder.
“Something’s happening,” she said.
It was easy enough to see: A ribbon of white light moved through the night on the far side.
“Coming this way, I think,” said Flojian.
Out of the northwest. It was traveling in a straight line. And coming quickly. Not like something passing through woods. More like a spirit gliding above the trees.
“The thing’s airborne,” said Silas.
The river wouldn’t be a barrier. Shannon put out the campfire.
Avila bowed her head and whispered a prayer.
“Ever see anything like this before?” Quait asked Shannon.
“No.” He collected his rifle and loaded a shell into the breech.
“It’s Arin’s dragon,” said Chaka. She scrambled to her feet and went after her own weapon, though she did not believe that bullets would have any effect on this thing.
It broke apart, separated into distinct glowing segments. Four. One behind the other.
It was curving eastward now, moving as if it were going to pass across their front, parallel to the river. They held their breath.
It began to slow down.
She watched it approach, watched its lights move along the surface of the water, watched them disappear behind patches of forest and individual trees, and then re-emerge.
There was no sound, save the wind on the river, and the insects and the horses.
“It’s stopping,” said Silas in a hushed voice.
Each of the four illuminated segments had now become rows of individual lights. Eyes, thought Chaka. It had a thousand eyes.
The forest tried to swallow it, but they could still see the glow of its passing through the trees. It was almost directly opposite them.
She heard Quait’s voice. “What do you think, Silas?”
“Voices travel across water,” whispered Shannon. “Let’s talk about it later.”
It came out of the trees and stopped. Its lights floated on the river.
“You don’t think it knows we’re here, do you?” Chaka asked Quait.
Quait shook his head. “No.”
“Then what’s it waiting for?”
His only answer was to move close to her.
A cloud drifted across the moon.
The dragon remained quite still.
It seemed to Chaka that a substantial piece of an hour passed before the lights across the river blinked, and the thing began to move again. Back in the direction from which it had come.
They watched it cruise through the forest and curve back out into the night. It picked up speed and rose again above the trees. Its lights flowed together. After a while they began to dim. And within a few minutes, it was gone.
13
Jon Shannon had come to recognize a kindred spirit in Avila. The former priest was a solitary creature who enjoyed but never required the company of others. She was the only one of his five charges who did not seem like a transient in the deep forest. This was not attributable, he decided, to extraordinary wilderness skills. Flojian was better with horses, Chaka was a more skilled hunter, Quait a more accurate marksman. But Avila might almost have been a creature of the forest. She loved the leafy glades and the green silences and she never reminisced about Illyria. Although she was usually the one to point out that a break was prudent to rest the animals or the people, or to restock the larder, she grew impatient with delays. She was always anxious to move on, to see where the road went.