Only Beloved seemed resigned that these dragons would eat the body of one who had been a companion to so many of them. But when he motioned to all of us to step back, everyone moved aside to let the dragons pass. The dock creaked and swayed on its pilings as the dragons halted by the body and looked down at it. I had thought there would be some ceremony, some decorous sharing, but no.
Eager to be first, both green and blue dragon darted their heads down to the corpse. We’d had only a piece of scorched sail canvas to cover him with, so nothing shielded us from the sight of the blue dragon seizing Kennitsson by the head and tugging the corpse upright as the green’s head snaked in to shear off the bottom half of his body. Before anyone could gasp, the blue had lifted the head half with its now unravelling entrails and gulped it in.
Bits of Kennitsson’s guts littered the dock. One of his sailors turned and harshly vomited into the harbour. Ant had lifted her hands to cover her eyes. Boy-O clung to his father like a child and Brashen’s face was white. Spark gripped my other hand and swayed slightly.
‘It is done,’ Beloved said, as if that somehow made what we had seen better. As if the gory bits littering the planks would disappear.
‘His memories will be within me,’ the blue dragon announced.
‘And in me,’ the green said, almost argumentatively.
‘I will sleep now,’ the blue announced. He turned carefully but his tail still swept dangerously close. A step he took, and then he halted. He lowered his head and his eyes whirled as he snuffed Brashen’s chest. He turned his head sideways, and regarded Boy-O. ‘They burned us,’ he thrummed, as if he recalled something from long ago. He made a low sound, like an immense cauldron coming to a boil. ‘They have paid,’ he said. A longer time he stared. ‘Boy-O. I give you the honour of my name. Karrig.’ He lifted his head. ‘And I take part of yours. Karrigvestrit I shall be. I will remember you.’
Head up, the small dragon moved ponderously down the dock and toward the shore.
The green surveyed us silently. She drew breath and then reared up on her hind legs. She opened her mouth wide, and in the scarlet-and-orange striped maw she displayed, I saw death. Everyone crowded back and one man fell from the dock to the water as she hissed without venom. She closed her jaws and looked down on us. ‘I was ever a dragon,’ she said disdainfully. The dock swayed from her impetus and I feared it would collapse and spill all of us into the water as she sprang into the air. We cowered like rabbits as the wind of her wings swept us. A few moments later, the blue took flight and we were left as we had been. Ant was weeping with terror. She shot to Brashen’s side and he put a sheltering arm around the young deckhand.
Per scanned the skies. ‘I don’t see or hear any of the other dragons.’
‘They are likely gone to sleep off their … gorging,’ Beloved spoke reluctantly as if he did not wish to remind us of what they had gorged on. But no one was deceived, and an uneasy silence followed his words.
Beloved stood watching them fly against the darkening sky and I could not read his expression. His shoulders rose and then fell. ‘I am so tired,’ he said, and I felt he spoke the words to someone who wasn’t there. When he turned back to us, he spoke briskly. ‘The streets are quiet and the dragons gone. Now we must go to salvage food and find a better place to shelter tonight.’
Brashen and Ant and a sailor named Twan stayed with Boy-O while the rest of us ventured out as a tight party, for the tattooed woman insisted we be defended. Clef went with us, carrying a knife and looking as if he wished to be attacked. We soon saw that not every inhabitant had fled. Some peered at us from the doubtful shelter of half-tumbled walls. Others were out salvaging or looting. They were poorly armed and most fled as soon as they saw us. Once, a flung brick struck Spark a glancing blow on the shoulder, but there was no sign of the assailant. Nonetheless, we took that warning to heart.
We salvaged canvas from the tumble of a sailmaker’s sheds. Beloved sent sailors back with enough for a sling to carry Boy-O. We made a camp against the standing wall of the sailmaker’s house. The night was mild. Per cut a square of canvas for me to sit on. One of the men fetched water in Prilkop’s bucket.
Beloved did not wish to let me go with those who went to search for food, but I was too hungry to obey him. It was not a difficult search. This town had lived in plenty, and had not taken much of it when they fled. Some of the gardens had fruit trees. After days of being at sea, we little cared if it was ripe or not. We filled our shirtfronts. Per found loaves and buns and even little cakes scattered among the wreckage of a bakery, and I found a tub of butter. ‘I have heard that grease is good for a burn,’ I mentioned to Per.
He looked doubtful but we took it along with our other looted food. ‘Boy-O was very good to me, as was Brashen. And Kennitsson,’ he added in a tighter voice. ‘Althea. Cord.’ I had not stopped to think that he might have made fast friends among the crew. I thought of that as we walked, eating as we went. I had Per, but if he had friends here, did I have less of him? Who cared for me in this world? Nettle and Riddle seemed very far away, and now they had a baby to share. Even Wolf Father was gone from me now. As I followed Per and the others through the deepening dark, the world seemed to stretch wider and emptier around me.
When we returned we found Brashen setting cool wet rags on Boy-O’s burns. The younger man lay very still. His father had cut away much of his clothing and his burns were more extensive than I had thought. There were places where the fabric of his shirt had adhered to the burned flesh, and there it stayed, colourful flags on scorched territory.
Per knelt on one side of him. ‘Do you think we can wake him enough to eat some bread?’ he asked Brashen, who shook his head. His face was lined and there was some grey in his dark curly hair.
He looked at me and said, ‘So this is the child we came to rescue. All of this death and destruction, to bring her home,’ he said bitterly, and I suspected he thought me a bad bargain. Could I fault him for that? I had cost him a ship and his wife. Perhaps his son.
I knelt on the other side of his son with the butter tub. Clef had followed us and stood wordlessly behind me along with the tattooed woman that everyone called Navigator. ‘I brought this to dress his wounds,’ I told him. His dark eyes were empty of hope and he did not object. I dug my fingers into the soft yellow butter and very gently began to smooth it onto Boy-O’s face. The bubbled flesh felt terribly wrong under my fingertips. One of the big blisters broke and oozed fluid that mixed with the butter. Wrong, it was all wrong. What was right? I touched the flesh next to the burn. That was right. That was what his skin should be like. My fingertips dragged on the unburned skin. I wished I could pull it over the scorched flesh like a cool coverlet.
His father abruptly leaned closer. ‘Butter does that?’ he demanded in a stunned voice.