“That seems wisest to me,” Greft abruptly agreed. He glanced back at Kase and Boxter. “Do you both agree?”
Boxter nodded. Kase, his copper eyes gleaming in the gathering gloom, hunched his shoulders. Greft turned back to Thymara. “Then it’s all settled. We’ll see you when you get back to the river.”
“It’s not all settled!” Thymara snarled, but Tats put a warm hand on her shoulder. She felt the weight of it, but she wondered if he was reassuring her that he was with her or holding her back from what he regarded as foolishness. He spoke past her to Greft.
“It will be all settled when we get back to the river. We all know night is coming on and we can’t waste time in arguing right now. But it’s not all settled, Greft. I agree that meat should be shared, but not the way you’re doing it.”
Greft’s narrow lips moved. It might have been a smile or a sneer. “Of course, Tats. Of course. We’ll see you back at the river.” He suddenly leaned into the load he was pulling, and Thymara found herself stepping aside, back into the pressing brush behind her, to allow him to pass. Boxter and Kase came behind him, and both of them were plainly grinning. Kase spoke in a low voice as he passed her. “Only fair to get a share of meat if you’ve done work for it,” he observed.
“No one asked you to do any work!” she growled after him. He kept walking. “It’s like paying a thief because he worked hard to rob your house!” She raised her voice to hurl the words after him.
“No! It’s like giving your workers a share of the harvest!” he shouted back. She drew breath to point out that merely taking the harvest was not working for it when Tats spoke again. She realized then that he’d never let go of her shoulder, for he tightened his grip on her as he said, “Not now, Thymara. Focus on the most important thing. We need to get that meat back to the river before nightfall. And before the insects get any worse.”
“Parasites!” she snarled after them, and then turned away. “The meat is this way. Or what’s left of it!” She strode angrily through the forest.
Tats was right. The stinging little pests had already begun to swarm around them. Biting insects were never absent in the Rain Wilds, but the evening always brought them out in droves. Well, at least the thieves had broken a better trail for them to follow. She wanted to rant and rave as she thudded along but saved her breath.
When they reached the carcass, she heard the small sounds of several little scavengers scampering away. The smallest ones, the ants and beetles, had already flocked to the feast and were undeterred by the arrival of the humans. They swarmed over the elk’s body, congregating in black, shimmering masses wherever the raw flesh was exposed.
Tats had thought to bring a small hatchet. It was messy, for the blade flung blood and bits of meat on every swing, but between it and her knife they cut the rest of the elk into manageable hunks much faster than she could have done alone. She grumbled as she did so. Greft and his cohorts had taken the most manageable parts of the elk. They cut the head and neck free, and then divided the trunk into the rib cage and haunches. It stank as they cut through the torso. The guts would spill and string; there was nothing they could do about it. They could have left them, but Thymara knew that to the dragons they were a delicacy.
Tats had brought more rope as well. It was almost annoying to think of how well prepared he always seemed to be. They spoke little, working swiftly. Thymara tried to focus on what she was doing rather than let her simmering anger interfere. Tats was his quiet, competent self, limiting his words to conversation about the task at hand. Sylve hung back on the edges of the operation, stepping in to help whenever she was asked, but keeping silent in a way that began to bother Thymara. She wondered if the blood and stink bothered the girl.
“Sylve, are you all right? You know, some people just can’t do this kind of thing. It makes them sick. If you need to step back from it, just say so.”
She saw Sylve give her head a shake, sending her hanks of hair flying wildly around her pink scalp. She had a strange look on her face, as if she didn’t want to be there but couldn’t bring herself to leave.
“I think,” Tats said, between grunts as he fastened rope harnesses to each chunk of meat, “that Greft’s arguments . . . made Sylve uncomfortable. She’s wondering—hold that while I tie this knot, would you?—if you resent her taking a share of the meat.”
The girl turned her face aside abruptly, her hurt so obvious that it smote Thymara. “Sylve! Of course not! I invited you to come and help with this, and of course you deserve some of the meat. I said I’d take care of the silver, and instead that task fell to you. Even if you hadn’t come, if you told me that your dragon needed meat, I’d help you. You know that.”
