Out over the sea, Marshy sang alone, his voice given power by the dragons and by the bards who, in silence, joined him. Marshy touched each child in the war-ravaged city, made each know special things. He brought the last of the children out of hiding, many who knew nothing but darkness. They came running now, the child-slaves dragging their chains, swarming into Gardel-Cloor, following for the first time not cruel masters but a far greater power.
Chapter 21
The minute he was on the ground Teb grabbed Camery and squeezed her so hard she yelped. Then he held her away, and they really looked at each other for the first time. She was as tall as he. Her face was smeared with dirt and her bright hair tangled, but her grin was the same, that green-eyed devilish smile. The little girl was still there beneath the strength of a woman and soldier, and the awakened power of a bard. She looked him over and touched the scar on his arm.
“What did that? The scar has twisted your birthmark—the dragon’s mark.”
“Sivich’s soldiers cut me when they took me captive.”
“Garit helped you escape from them, he told me.”
“They caught me again outside a fox den at the back of Nison-Serth.”
“Then how did you get away?”
“The dragons’ mother released me from the dragon trap Sivich built to catch her. I was the bait. The otters found me with a broken leg and unconscious, and dragged me onto a raft and took me to Nightpool.”
She touched his face where a scar marked his chin. “And that? I want to know everything that has happened to you.”
He grinned. “I was climbing the sea cliff. A wave made me slip—the sea hydrus was chasing me.”
Her eyes widened. She looked down the sea cliff where they stood, at the crashing waves. “So much to learn about you, Teb. So much to tell each other.”
Above them on the cliff the dragons had settled among the rocks, twined around one another. The gate of Gardel-Cloor stood ajar. They could hear the tangle of voices inside and the laughter of children who had not laughed for a very long time.
“Camery, I think Mama is alive.”
Her eyes widened, not in surprise but in recognition. “I have believed that for a long time. I thought I only wanted to believe it. Tell me . . .”
“She is a bard, did you guess that? She went to search for her own dragon—her second, for the one she paired with originally was killed.”
“Where is she?”
“Do you know the Castle of Doors?”
“Oh . . . yes.” Camery swallowed, and pressed her fist to her mouth. “She went. . . through? Into . . .”
“Into other worlds. She went searching for Dawncloud, but Dawncloud was here all the time, was fast asleep in Tendreth Slew, so they didn’t sense each other. It was Dawncloud who saved me, who is mother of our four.”
“But where is Dawncloud now?”
“She went after Mama. But it’s a long story; let’s save some for later. Garit is down there. I caught a glimpse of him.”
They went along the cliff, then down and across stones wet with sea spray, and in through the carved stone gates of Gardel-Cloor. Garit grabbed Teb in a great hug, nearly crushing him, and Camery swept up little Marshy, who ran shouting to her, and whirled him around the great cave, in and out among the shouting children. Teb was surprised to find himself as tall as Garit; Garit had always seemed as huge as the red-maned bull that gave him his nickname. He smelled of horses and leather, and his smile was just as comforting as always. He pummeled Teb and shook him.
“So our Kiri was right. Prince Tebmund of Thedria was to be trusted, in spite of consorting with the king.”
“Did she say that?”
“She knew she shouldn’t trust you so soon, in spite of her feelings. Your strange, perceptive horses upset her.”
They looked toward Kiri and Colewolf sitting quietly together, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her. They might have been quite alone, even though dozens of children crowded the cave and bands of rebel fighters kept arriving.
Men and women had begun to remove the children’s chains and tend their wounds, and a bathing tub of seawater was heating over a fire, the smoke rising up through a smoke hole. At the back of the fire several haunches were roasting, the smell of crisp meat filling Gardel-Cloor. The great cats wandered among the children, some licking wounds and some curled down among the napping little ones, couching small heads and warming their thin little bodies. And there were foxes. Teb stood staring. Five pale foxes gathered with the great cats, and one old otter.
“Yes, foxes.” Garit laughed. “And does the otter make you feel at home? The big fox is Hexet of Kipa. Go and greet them while I help tend to the children; then we’ll catch up, have a good talk. I have a thousand questions.”
Teb went to sit on a low stone before the animals; he wanted to gather them all in a big hug but wouldn’t embarrass them. Just to see foxes again and to see the dark, laughing face of an otter was wonderful. It was only a moment until they were all introduced, and Hexet was telling him that Brux, of the fox colony at Nison-Serth, was his cousin. Brux had helped to save Teb when he escaped the first time from Sivich. And the old otter, Lebekk, knew many at Nightpool, for he had traveled five times to that island.
“I know Thakkur well, and know what he has done for the resistance. Ever since you left Nightpool, Tebriel, he has sent cadres of young armed and trained otters up the coast to help the human rebels in any way they could. At Baylentha, when Ebis the Black put down a second uprising, it was the otters, working in team with Ebis’s agents, who discovered the source of the infiltrators and trapped them in their own fishing boats and sank them.”
Teb felt a surge of pride in Thakkur so strong he had to swallow several times and could not speak. Thakkur had done it, had made the Nightpool otters into an effective army. He had trained the otters for battle, had taught them to use weapons—despite the loud complaining by Nightpool’s handful of troublemakers.
“And it was Thakkur’s otters at Vouchen Vek,” Hexet said, “who trained the otter colony there and helped them steal weapons. You were one of them, Lebekk. You were there.”
“Yes,” Lebekk said, his dark, sleek coat catching the firelight. “With the human rebels, we laid siege to Fekthen and Thiondor, sank their supply boats, and starved the dark troops. We fed the captives secretly and freed them, and they killed their dark masters. Though I think they had other incentives as well. I believe the dragon song touched them there, that visions came to them.”
Teb stayed with Lebekk and the foxes a long time, taking pleasure in their eager talk and simple well-being. Then when two great cats challenged them to a game, he left them. The meat was nearly cooked, the cave redolent of the smoky juices, and his stomach rumbled with hunger. He saw more soldiers arriving bloody and torn, having tended first to their tired horses. Now their own wounds were treated and they were fed and made comfortable. Teb found Camery, and they filled their plates with the good roasted meat and roots and flat bread, then found a little alcove where they could sit alone. Here he told her all that had happened to him, from the morning he was led away from the palace tied on his horse. Garit had told her part of it, how he and young Lervey and the old cook, Pakkna, and Hibben of the twisted hand had slipped out of Sivich’s camp at midnight, stealing Teb away.
“Pakkna and Lervey are with the troops in Branthen,” she said. “Hibben travels across Akemada secretly rallying troops. But tell me again how Sivich captured you.”