Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [187]
“It be due to my father,” Enj said abruptly. “He taught me all I know, you see, about the great wyrms, and truly, he did know a great deal, because he found them beautiful. Once when he were very young, he saw a black one flying over Haen Marn, or so he told me, and never could he forget the sight. So down in Lin Serr he studied lore, finding much in books as well as in various tales from bards and priests.”
“I didn’t realize that the dwarves had lore books. Well, I couldn’t have read them anyway, I suppose, when I was there.”
“Oh, there’s a book hold in Lin Serr, Rori, that’s as big as the manse back home in Haen Marn. From what my father did tell me, he spent a long time there, studying dragon lore. But then he came to regret it, not that he should have. You see, when my sister was born, and it came clear that she were, well, so strange, he felt it was his fault.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s a daft idea, his blaming of himself, and it did distress my mother sorely, as well you can imagine. Because he’d spent all that time brooding about dragons and talking about dragons and suchlike, he was convinced that he’d somehow summoned a dragon soul to be born into his daughter’s body.”
Rhodry could only gape at him. Enj looked away, his voice turning unsteady.
“He drowned soon after, of course. I was about a score of summers old, so I remember him well. I loved him well, too. Often we’d take a boat over to shore and go off for days together, hunting. We’d take dogs and bows, you see, and hunt the deer and wild sheep to feed the island. And while we made our nights’ camps, he’d tell me tales about dragons, and how his heart ached, just from longing to see another one fly.”
“And so you want to fulfill his quest?”
“Just that.”
“Well, you know, if you could pass that lore on to me, I’d be truly grateful. It would be a shame to have him gone, and only one person knowing his lore.”
“True.” Enj’s voice choked. “And I will.”
They sat together in silence for a few minutes more, until Enj wiped his eyes on his sleeve and stood, stepping back cautiously from the edge.
“And now it be best we get on our way. If we follow the rim of this valley, it should lead us to the waterfall that Avain saw in her basin, and then well know we’re heading the right way.”
Rhodry and Enj had left Haen Mam when the moon was just waxing full. By the time that they were speaking of Enj’s father (and this was also about the time that Dallandra reached Jill’s chamber), the moon was past her third quarter. Some days earlier, they’d left the hill country behind for the flanks of the mountains. Although Rhodry had been dreading the climb, paradoxically enough it was in one way easier going than the hills. Though the slopes rose so steeply that at times they walked bent double, leaning upon sticks, once they crossed in to high timber the underbrush thinned out. Huge firs of the kind the dwarves call “mountain grays,” taller than any pillar in a High King’s hall, rose straight and dark, dropping a blanket of dead needles the color of dried blood, thick and spongy underfoot. Although bringing a pack animal through would have been close to impossible, especially since there was no green fodder to speak of, two men could pick their way at a reasonable pace.
“There be little that can grow here, such be this ground,” Enj remarked. “I don’t know why, but it’s as if the firs claim these mountains for themselves alone and choke out any usurpers.”
Along the streams, of course, a tangle of shrubs and seedlings fought for water and sun both. In and among them Enj found edible herbs of various sorts as well as fish. Whenever they camped, they set wire snares for rabbits and rodents to supplement what flatbread and cheese they were carrying on their backs. They needed every extra bite they could forage. The forest stretched on and on, a sea indeed, roiling over the high mountains and plunging down into the rare valley. Rhodry felt like a swimmer, making his way underwater to bob up now and then for