Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(60)

The road to Blystane was straight and well maintained compared with others we’d traveled in Samsam, but halfway there we lost half our escort.

We were camping. I was alone in the tent, naked from the waist up, washing the scales around my midriff, when the tent flap rustled behind me. I assumed it was Abdo coming in before I’d finished my nightly ablutions. I turned, intending to ask for a few more minutes to myself, and met a different pair of black eyes behind me.

It was Rodya, staring in horror at the silver dragon scales across my back.

He screamed and scrambled backward away from me, knocking over the tent pole. The tent collapsed. My wash water spilled all over the bedrolls as I thrashed around. I kicked over the lantern, causing a brief flare-up, but the damp canvas smothered the flame. It seemed likely to smother me as well. Outside, Rodya screamed hysterically. Finally, a pair of calm, strong hands began pulling one end of the tent, dragging it off me. I rolled onto the wet ground.

I folded my arms, covering what I could, but my wide girdle of silver scales encircled me all the way around. Hanse stood over me, his creased face inscrutable, the canvas flung over his shoulder. Behind him, Rodya was practically dancing in the firelight. “There! See? What is she? A demon? A saar?”

“What are you, grausleine?” said Hanse in surprisingly clear Goreddi.

“My mother was a dragon,” I said, my teeth chattering.

Hanse raised his eyebrows. “And the boy?”

I nodded. “Is also half dragon.”

Then Rodya screamed again. Abdo had pulled a smoldering branch out of the fire and whacked him one-handed across the back of the knees with it. Rodya collapsed.

I saw him wander away from the fire. I should have hit him then, Abdo said grimly, hitting Rodya again while he was down.

I scrambled to put on my shirt, which had fallen on the damp, muddy ground. Rodya hadn’t brought his weapon into my tent, which was lucky; by the time I looked up again, he’d scrambled to his feet and was chasing Abdo around the fire. Abdo wouldn’t have stood a chance against the sword. Even now, Rodya came perilously close to catching him. Abdo dodged and rolled, trying to keep the fire between them.

Hanse watched in silence, sucking in his cheeks, coming to some conclusion of his own. As Rodya ran past, trying to catch Abdo, Hanse grabbed him by the shirt collar, wheeled him around, and punched him in the mouth.

“You saw her!” shrieked Rodya in Samsamese. “How can you take her part?”

“No, you saw her when you shouldn’t have,” said Hanse. “Did you not listen to your mother’s stories, boy? Never spy on strange maidies bathing.” He belted Rodya again. “They’re always the ones who turn out to be other than they seem.”

Rodya, his horse, and his things were gone by morning. Hanse would barely speak to me; that wasn’t new, but in light of recent events and without Rodya to fill the awkward silences, it was hard to take. It seemed we had one or two things we might have spoken about. I just pray we don’t miss Rodya’s sword, I told Abdo as we packed to go.

Rodya’s lucky to have a sword after last night, he said, mounting his horse.

Hanse guided us toward the coastal plain, and the rain grew less constant. The drama with Rodya and the occasional appearance of the sun perked Abdo up for a few days, but it didn’t last. He wasn’t sleeping well; his eyes looked sunken. Around us the landscape flattened into broad farms, cultivated with barley and flax; columnar poplars lined both sides of the road, their round leaves shivering anxiously in the breeze.

The crenellated walls of Blystane finally came into sight one afternoon. The cathedral spire rose above all, but I also discerned a fortress, bristling with towers, which I took to be the seat of government. The city had leaked out of its walls and puddled upon the surrounding plain. There was even a tent village to the north, which struck me as curious—and uncomfortable in soggy weather.

Hanse reined in his horse; I pulled up alongside and gave him a questioning look.

“Your destination,” said Hanse, his eyes unaccountably sad. “You’ll arrive within three hours, if you don’t dawdle. Well before sunset.”

“You’re not coming with us?” I asked.

He scratched his bristly chin. “I can tell you are a decent person, grausleine, and I could not abandon you in the middle of nowhere, with no idea of your way forward. But I also cannot …” He paused so long I wasn’t sure he was going to continue.

In fact, he wasn’t. He turned his horse around and motioned us to be on our way. Abdo and I rode on, incredulous, turning to watch him over our shoulders. He did not look back as he rode away.

So he took Rodya’s part after all, said Abdo.

“He followed his conscience,” I said slowly, considering, “even when it went against his conscience.”

We spurred our steeds forward in somber silence.



The closer we drew, the less haphazard the tent village looked. The tents were laid out in an orderly fashion, many with identical blue and black stripes, many flying banners; there were horses and armed men and cook fires. Abdo, I said silently, what’s going on here?

It looks like an army, he said.

I thought so, too, but why was an army camped outside Blystane? I scanned the sky for smoke and strained my ears for cries, but there were none. A steady stream of farmers, merchants, and drovers passed us. The city seemed to be in no distress.