Tattoo twitched in her sleep.
‘What is it?’ Fontagu asked.
She thought about the sky-traders carting the equens around with slings under the wing craft, and how terrifying that must be for an equen. It was their worst nightmare. It was cruel.
Tab ran her hands over Tattoo's neck. ‘They live for much longer than Quentaran horses.’
‘How long?’
Tab shrugged. It was hard to quantify in Tattoo's terms. ‘Maybe two hundred winters.’
Fontagu's eyes widened.
Tab continued. ‘There is only one breeding pair in the herd. Each year the queen has two foals – one male and one female. Every five winters, all the males of age leave the herd together and go through the forest in search of a new herd. The strongest will find one.’
‘And what if they don't?’
Tab winced.
‘Oh,’ said Fontagu. ‘And what about the other mares? What do they do?’
‘They're workers. They heal the herdsfolk. It's a desert. There's not much to eat for the people. They don't get all they need to stay healthy. That can make them weak and sick. The equens heal them, and in return the herdsfolk protect them and tend to them.’
‘So the males don't do this healing?’ Fontagu pressed.
Tab shook her head. ‘She doesn't seem to think so.’ Of course, it made sense. Talisman and Trinket, the equens the sky-traders had sold them were useless, except as packhorses.
‘Splendid that we have a mare,’ Fontagu said, rubbing his hands together. ‘You know, I think I'm beginning to feel better already. Ten years younger at least.’
Tab ignored him. She knotted her fingers in the equen's mane, consumed by the image of the dark shadows overhead and the screaming. ‘In deep winter the mountains are crusted with ice and there is nothing left awake or alive in the forest, then the scavenjaws come down from the hills to find food on the plains. The mares will stand between the scavenjaws and their queen.’
‘Until?’ prompted Fontagu.
She shuddered. ‘Until the scavenjaws have no more appetite.’
‘One would want to be born the queen, wouldn't one?’ Fontagu observed. ‘I wonder if those skytraders have any more mares? If I had a few more I could probably live forever. Find out if the healing works better if you eat them. Does she have some kind of gland we could drain?’ Fontagu grinned. ‘I know a fellow who will sell me a pallet of pipettes. We can set up our bottling operation right here.’
‘Nobody is going to let you keep her. They will know you stole her!’ Tab told him.
‘Who will? Your friend Verris the pirate? Drass Nibhelline? Or did you have some other model of virtuous commercial conduct in mind? For all they know I could have bought this old nag fair and square.’ Fontagu rubbed his chin. ‘Go ahead and tell your snooty council! I dare you!’
Tab frowned at the ugly expression on Fontagu's face. She turned away as he started pacing out the space inside the slaughterhouse, muttering measurements to himself.
She stroked the mare's neck and Tattoo opened her eyes.
What if the queen gets sick, or dies from a serpent bite? she wondered. What happens to the herd if the queen has an accident? She looked in Tattoo's eyes searching for an answer. Tattoo looked beyond her shoulder, as though considering the question. Tab couldn't feel an answer. Tab guessed that the equen hadn't seen it happen.
›››Until now
Tab was startled.›››What do you mean?
The equen rocked onto her stomach and stretched her neck forward. Tab held out a hand to her.
›››I am Tattoo
Tab suddenly understood. ‘Tattoo’ stood out in her head the way that ‘herdsfolk’ and ‘two-legged’ did. The mare thought, ‘I am Tattoo’, but what she meant was, ‘I am the equen queen’. Tab felt the deep sadness sweep over her again. It was not just Tattoo's fate – there was a whole herd that relied on her, and the herdsfolk too. She remembered the scene of the migration. How many souls depended on this queen?
Tab lay down in the straw next to Tattoo and laid her hand over the equen's shoulder. She closed her eyes.
All at once there was a rumble. Tattoo's eyes widened, she set her legs wide apart to brace herself. Tab sat up, not sure how long she had slept – or whether she had been asleep at all. She looked through a window, up near the slaughterhouse ceiling. High above the city, sails whipped and slapped as the sky-sailors lashed them into place. Rigging clanked as ropes whistled through the pulleys.
Simultaneously, Tab felt a heavy throbbing begin within the core of Quentaris. There was a deep whock whock whock noise. The engines that propelled Quentaris had started. After such a long time of stillness Tab had forgotten how loud they were, and how you could feel the thrum of it in your gut, and the prickle of the magic somewhere behind your eyes.
Tab jumped to her feet. Fontagu grabbed her wrist. ‘Where are you going?’
‘We can't leave here,’ she said. ‘That will only take us further away from Tattoo's world. She has to go home.’
Fontagu held on tight. ‘We can make a lovely home right here. We'll get some nice fresh straw. You can brush her twice a day.’
‘Let go of me!’ Tab struggled against him.
‘And oats for her to eat. Yum, yum. She'll learn to love it. You watch. So much nicer than some nasty old desert,’ he wheedled.
Tab wrenched her hand away and sprinted for the door. She threw it open and looked up. She could hear Tibbid's cries ringing through the streets, urging people to return to their homes and to brace themselves for the coming tumult as the city neared a vortex.
Tab thrust both hands out, steadying herself in the doorway, hardly daring to look, but unable to look away. The sky was undulating, swollen in ugly yellows and greys, like an old bruise. Clouds roiled and a series of deafening peals of thunder shook the ground. The sails bulged, deflated and bulged again.
The sky seemed to spin faster, but it was Quentaris that was spinning, twisting and plummeting through the vortex. The timber shuddered under her hands. The sky was a blur now. Her head whirled. Her stomach heaved and churned.
She cast her eyes skyward one more time, and this time Quentaris pitched. Tab saw through the spinning vortex to the calm skies they were leaving behind. The sky-traders’ city skimmed on the edge of the vortex like a stone skipping across the top of a pond.
Why aren't they following us in? she wondered.
Then, for just a few seconds, Tab saw her friend, Melprin, straight as an arrow, dive-bombing the city, wrenching sails and rigging in her huge talons, throwing them out into the open sky or deep into the mouth of the vortex. With a bellow of fury the dragon tore away one of the smaller masts and thrust it through one of the buildings like a javelin. The sky-traders’ city listed and Tab could see one of her propellers hanging askew.
They couldn't follow even if they wanted to. The dragon had cast them adrift.
Tab held her breath, waiting for Melprin to pull back, to turn, to follow Quentaris into the vortex, but she was in a frenzy of destruction. Tab gripped the doorframe tighter still, until her knuckles were white. She was awed by the power of the dragon, the grace of her fury.
Tab's guilt and regret washed over her. It was her fault the dragon had lost her egg. Melprin had saved her again and again. If they left her behind Tab could never make it up to her.