Thymara realized she still had hold of his hand. ‘We should get out of here,’ she said in a low voice. ‘If they turn around, there’s nothing between them and us. And no place for us to run where they can’t run faster.’
Tats didn’t take his eyes off the scene before him. ‘They’ll gorge themselves and they won’t be interested in us.’ He suddenly snapped his gaze skyward. ‘If they get a chance,’ he added.
Sintara fell on them like a blue thunderbolt, striking the thick huddle of wolves tearing at the first deer they had downed. The weight of her impact sent carcass and wolves sliding across the bridge deck to fetch up against the stone wall. She rode them, her rear talons set firmly in the carcass, her front claws tearing at the wolves as they went. By the time they slammed into the wall, she had closed her jaws on a wolf and lifted it aloft. Others, yelping in pain, sprawled in a trail behind her. None of them would hunt again.
A fraction of a breath behind her, Fente hit the other deer and the three wolves that had killed it. Her strike was not as fortuitous. One wolf went spinning off the end of the bridge, and her impact sent the carcass flying after him. The second died in a screaming yelp while the third, ki-yi-ing in fright, fled back the way they had come.
‘Tats!’ Thymara shrieked the warning as the creature galloped toward them, but in one motion he swept her behind him with one arm while brandishing his bow like a staff. As the animal came on, it grew impossibly large, until she abruptly realized it truly was that big. If it had stood on its hind legs, it would have been taller than Tats. Jaws wide, tongue hanging red, it raced directly at them. Thymara sucked in a breath to scream, but then held it as the terrified wolf suddenly veered past them and scrabbled up the steep slope, to disappear in the brush.
Belatedly, she realized she had a tight grip on the back of Tats’s tunic. She released it as he turned and put his arms around her. For a time they held one another, both shaking. She lifted her face and looked over his shoulder. ‘It’s gone,’ she said stupidly.
‘I know,’ he replied, but he didn’t let her go. After a time, he said quietly, ‘I’m sorry that I slept with Jerd. Sorry in a lot of ways, but mostly that it hurt you. That it made it harder for us to …’ He let his words trail away.
She took a breath. She knew what he wanted to hear and what she couldn’t say. She wasn’t sorry she had been with Rapskal. She didn’t think it had been a mistake. She wished she had considered the decision more coolly but she found she could not tell Tats she was sorry for having done it. She found other words. ‘What you and Jerd did had nothing to do with me, at the time. At first I was angry about it because of how I found out, and how stupid I felt. Then I was angry because of how Jerd made me feel. But that’s not something you could have controlled or—’
‘Of course! We’ve been so stupid!’
She stepped away from him to look up at his face, affronted. But he wasn’t looking at her, but past her, at the truncated bridge. She tried to see what had startled him. Sintara was still there, feeding on deer and wolf carcasses. Fente was gone, as was the sole dead wolf that had been the only fruit of her strike. She’d probably gulped it down and taken flight. As she watched, Fente came suddenly into view, rising up from beyond the tattered end of the bridge. The slender green dragon beat her wings steadily, rising as she flew across the river. Halfway across, she banked her wings sharply and flew upstream, gaining altitude as she went.
‘Why are we stupid?’ Thymara demanded, dreading his answer.
He took her by surprise when he exclaimed, ‘This is what the dragons have needed all along. A launching platform. I bet that half of them could fly across the river today if they launched from here. At the very least, they’d get close enough that even after they hit the water, they could wade out on the other side. They can all fly a bit now. If they could get across, soak in the waters, chances are that they could re-launch from that end of the bridge, and have a better chance of flight. And hunting.’
She thought carefully about it, measuring the bridge ends with her eyes and thinking over what she’d seen the dragons do. ‘It would work,’ she agreed.
‘I know!’ He seized her in his arms, lifted her up against his chest and whirled her around. As he set her down, he kissed her, a sudden hard kiss that mashed her lips against her teeth and sent a bolt of heat through her body. Then, before she could react or respond to his kiss, he set her down and stooped to pick up the bow he had dropped when he embraced her. ‘Let’s go. News like this is more important than meat.’
