Dragon Haven by Hobb Robin Read Free Book Online

of her. Mercor hovered over the group, while Sylve appeared to be in charge of the operation. The girl also looked different, Thymara thought, though she could not quite put her finger on what it was.
    She took two steps closer and felt ill. Barely exposed snake tails dotted the dragon’s belly. She swallowed hard. It had been awful to watch the writhing parasite exit from Sintara’s body. The snake had not been in her long, and most of its body had still been outside the dragon’s. Once Leftrin had daubed the strong smelling tereben oil around the injury, the snake had gone limp, and then suddenly began to lash wildly. The dragon had trumpeted her distress. Thymara had stepped forward hastily and seized the lashing snake by the tail. “Hold on. I’m applying more oil!” Leftrin had warned her.
    At the second application, the snake had become frantic. It had begun to writhe backward out of the dragon, and as the length of bloody snake emerged, Thymara had forced herself to seize it and hold on lest it try to reenter the dragon. It had slithered and slipped in her grip. Sintara had blasted news of her pain and the other dragons and keepers had begun to gather around her. As the final length of the snake had emerged, the animal had whipped its head about, splattering Thymara’s face with blood as it tried to attack the creature who gripped it. She had shrieked as the blood hit her and flung the animal to the ground. Tats had been ready and waiting with a hatchet. It hadn’t got far. She’d stood numbly, shaking with her dragon’s shared pain. She’d dragged her sleeve across her face, but it only smeared the thick blood more. It had smelled and tasted of dragon, and even now, after she’d washed it off, the clinging scent of it filled her nose, and she could not be rid of the taste of it. Afterward, Leftrin had swabbed the injury with rum and then sealed it over with a daub of tar lest the acid river water ulcerate it. The captain spoke as he worked. “After this, you’ll have to do nightlychecks of your dragons. Those snakes got something in their mouths that numbs the flesh. You don’t even feel one burrowing in. I got a little one in my leg once, didn’t even know it was there until I got out of the water.”
    As Alise and Sylve worked, the copper dragon made small sounds of pain. Thymara squatted down beside her to look into her face, but the dragon’s eyes were closed. She wondered if Relpda was even conscious. She stood up again slowly. “Well, at least we know what’s wrong with her now. If we can get them out of her, clean her wounds, and seal them against the river water, maybe she’ll have a chance.”
    “We’ve cleaned away enough dirt. Let’s get them out of her,” Sylve decided.
    Thymara stood with the circle of watchers, staring in sick fascination. As Leftrin stepped forward with his pot and brush, she turned aside. Ever since Sintara’s blood had hit her face, it was all she could smell or taste. She had no desire to see more of it tonight. When she saw Sintara waiting on the outskirts of the gathering, Thymara pushed through the other onlookers to get to her dragon. “I don’t want to watch this,” she told her in a low voice. “It was hard to see one snake removed from you, and you hadn’t carried it long. I can’t watch this.”
    Sintara turned her head to regard her keeper. Her copper eyes whirled, and suddenly they appeared molten to Thymara, pools of liquid copper whirling against the gleaming backdrop of her lapis lazuli scales. Dragon glamour, she tried to warn herself, but couldn’t care. She let herself be drawn into that gaze, let herself become important because of the dragon’s regard for her. A tiny cynical part of her snidely asked if a dragon’s regard truly made her important. She ignored it.
    “You should go hunting,” Sintara suggested to her.
    She was reluctant to leave the dragon. Moving away from her glorious copper gaze would be like leaving the warmth of