There were only fifteen of them left now. She cast her mind back. More than one hundred serpents had massed at the mouth of the river and migrated up it. How many had actually cocooned? Fewer than eighty. She didn’t know how many had initially emerged, nor how many had survived the first day. It scarcely mattered now. Disease had taken some, and a few had fallen prey to a flash flood. The disease had been the most terrifying to her. She could not recall anything similar, and those others who were capable of intelligent speech had likewise been baffled by it. It had begun with a dry barking cough at night, one that disturbed the whole gathering of dragons. It had continued and spread until almost all of the dragons suffered from it to various degrees.
Then one of the smaller dragons had awakened them all by squawking hoarsely. It had been a small orange dragon with stumpy legs and wings that were only stubs. If he had ever had a name, Sintara couldn’t recall it now. He had been trying to paw at his eyes that were crusted shut with mucus. His truncated front legs would not reach. With every distressed squawk he gave, he sprayed thick tendrils of phlegm. All the dragons had moved aside from him in disgust. By midmorning he was dead, and a few moments later, all that remained of him was a smear of blood on the damp earth and a couple of fellow dragons with full bellies. By then, two of the others were wheezing and drooling mucus from their mouths and nostrils.
Drier weather brought an end to the malaise. All had suffered from it to some degree. Sintara suspected that the constantly wet riverbank and the mud they had to live in, combined with the dense population, had caused the sickness. If any of them had been able to fly, they would have left and, she suspected, in doing so outflown the contagion.
One dragon actually had left. Gresok had been the largest red, a male who was physically among the healthiest but mentally among the dullest. One afternoon, he had simply announced that he was leaving to find a better place, a city he’d seen in his dreams. Then he walked away, crashing through underbrush until they could no longer hear his passage. They’d let him go. Why not? He seemed to know what he wanted, and it would mean slightly more food for the rest of them when the human hunters meted out what they’d killed.
But no more than half a day had passed before they’d felt his dying thoughts. He cried out, not to them, but simply shouting his fury to himself. Humans had attacked him. That much was clear. And as they felt him die, two of the other dragons, Kalo and Ranculos, had charged off to follow his trail. They went, not to assist or avenge him, but only to claim his carcass as their rightful food. That night, they had returned to the riverbank. Neither had spoken of what they had done, but Sintara had her suspicions. Both had smelled of human blood as well as Gresok’s flesh. She suspected they’d come upon humans butchering the fallen Gresok, and included them in their feasting. She saw nothing wrong in that. Any human who dared to attack a dragon deserved to die himself. And dead, of what use was he, unless someone ate him? She didn’t see why leaving a human to be eaten by worms was more acceptable.
All of the dragons were well aware that it was better to cover all traces of such encounters. The humans were very poor at concealing their thoughts. The dragons were well aware of the anger and resentment that some felt toward them. Illogical as it was, it seemed that they preferred to have their dead eaten by fish rather than let a dragon have the use of the meat. Only a few afternoons ago, a group of humans had been putting the body of a dead relative into the river. She had waded out into the water and followed the weighted canvas packet as the current carried it until it sank under the water. She had retrieved it and dragged it ashore, well away from human eyes. She had eaten it, canvas covering and all. When she returned and realized how distressed the humans were, she had sought to save their feelings by denying she had eaten the corpse. They hadn’t believed her.
Their reaction made no sense to her. If the body had sunk to the bottom, fish and worms would have devoured it, tearing it to insignificant pieces. But because she had eaten the body, the human’s tiny store of memories had been preserved in her. True, most of the memories made little sense to her, and the woman had lived but a breath of time, only some fifty turnings of the seasons. Even so, something of her would go on. Did humans think it better that the woman’s body do no more than nourish another generation of sucker fish? Humans were so stupid.
Her dragon memories included a few scattered recollections of Elderlings. She wished they were clearer; they slipped and slid through her mind like a fish seen through murky water. The flavor of those memories offered tolerance, even fondness of such beings. They were useful and respectful creatures, willing to groom and greet dragons, to build their cities to accommodate them; they acknowledged the intelligence of dragons. How could sophisticated creatures such as Elderlings possibly be related to humans?