Gray readies a pounce. The crab raises a claw to discourage her. She isn’t and springs into flight. She floats around the crab in tight circles, the crab scuttling around to follow her eyes. She darts at its back. She makes a grab for its claws to lift it up and drop it. She snaps at its face. The crab won’t let her get close. Its claws are a waving, clicking wall. Finally, frustrated, the wyrmling lands in a neutral corner and sits with her tail swishing at the crab.
“What’s she doing?” Jeryon says.
The crabs wonders too. It edges closer. Swish. Closer still. Swish. The crab reaches for her tail. The poth bites her lip. The wyrmling flicks its tail and snaps the crab right in the eye. It bows in pain as the wyrmling spins, slides her wing under the crab’s left legs, then lifts. The crab’s broad claw clamps down on the wing. Gray hisses. The crab’s legs come off the ground. It readies its other claw to strike. Gray heaves the crab over.
The crab lets go of the wyrmling’s bleeding wing and flings out its claws to press off the ground and right itself. Gray stands on one claw and bites off the other, then gnashes off the first. The crab waggles its stumps and legs, trying to rock itself right-side up. Gray studies the crab a moment before sitting on its apron and biting off its legs, one by one. The crab’s split mouth shouts silently.
Jeryon and Everlyn cheer.
Gray drags the body to Everlyn, who’s touched.
Before she can pick Gray up to tend her wing, the wyrmling pounces on the broad claw and tries to crack it open with her mouth. Jeryon whistles twice. She doesn’t come, so he yanks the wyrmling away from the claw by her scruff. She hisses at him, flaps her wings, and breaks free. Jeryon grabs the claw, and she dives on his hand, biting him. He flings her off and shakes the blood from his hand.
The poth yells and steps toward the wyrmling. Jeryon says, “No!”
“You’ll hurt her,” the poth says. “She earned that claw. Let her have it.”
He steps between her and Gray. “On my terms,” he says. Then he drops the claw and puts his foot in front of it.
The wyrmling hisses, she squeals, she snaps at his foot, but he won’t let her have it. Finally, she sits and looks at him. He moves his foot. Gray attacks the claw.
“Now you may,” Jeryon says and steps aside so the poth can reach the wyrmling. He kicks the crab’s body out of the arena and stalks off, clutching his hand.
Everlyn finds him on the rock at the washbasin, probably the last place he thought she’d look for him. She has a packet of aloe leaves and one of his sleeves, now clean, to tie them on.
“I put the flower up,” he says.
“You could get a disease,” she says. “Do you want to be the first person to die from dragon spit?” She takes the ointment from the Comber out of her pocket. “Give me your hand.” He grudgingly sticks it out. She dabs some ointment on his wound, two matching semicircles of needle-thin punctures.
“You’re scaring me,” she says. She scores an aloe leaf with a bamboo splinter and wraps the leaf over his wound. “I know angry. I understand angry. That’s why I spend so much time on this rock. Not just to get away from you. I have to get away from me. Hold that there.” He does. “So I can live with angry. What I can’t live with is controlling. And I have to live with you if we’re going to survive.”
“I will not be undermined,” he says. “She’s bad enough.”
The wyrmling has poked out of her pocket. There’s a little bandage on its wing. It ducks into the depths.
“I’ve been around enough shipowners—and their wives—to understand that attitude,” she says. She puts one end of the sleeve on the leaf, he holds it with his finger, and she neatly wraps his hand. “What you misunderstand is, you’re not in charge. Flex your fingers.” He does. She knots the sleeve end to the last round. “And I will not obey. I’m not your mate. Those are my terms.”
He doesn’t know what to say. The captain commands. The rowers row. That’s the Hanoshi way. There is no middle ground. There isn’t even a term for middle ground, except perhaps “at crossed oars.”
She surveys his hand. “I used more bandage than the wound calls for, but I don’t want to cut the sleeve down in case we need a longer bandage at some point—or a tourniquet.” She stows the rest of the leaves and the ointment.
She wouldn’t deny him medical care, Jeryon thinks. She didn’t bring her sword. She can’t leave the island. What does she have to bargain with? “Then who controls the wyrmling?” he says.
“She does,” the poth says. “It’s clear she’ll do what we want, but only if she also wants to do it.”
“What about when we get back?”
“Let’s worry about that when we get back.”
He doesn’t see that he has a choice. He rubs his chin. He should cut off his beard to spite her, but he’s starting to like it.
4
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