Or rather, it acted like the others; its actions and movements were a little stilted, a bit of a caricature. After studying the beast for some time, he realized that it had selected one particular ox and was copying everything that ox did, acting a heartbeat or so behind it. When it bent its head to graze, so did the cow. When the ox turned to look at something, so did the cow. When it ambled down to the river for a drink, the cow followed, and when it lay down in the afternoon to chew its cud, the cow did the same a few feet away. The cow never once took its eyes off the ox, which was very peculiar behavior for a herd-beast, and a female at that.
Which meant that he wasn’t delusional; that dragon-shadow was there. The pack-beast was a shape-shifted dragon.
But since it hadn’t made itself known to him, it wasn’t one of the rebels who had cast their lot in with Shana and the wizards; they all knew what his halfblood-form looked like, and one of them would have signaled to him as soon as they saw him. So what Lair was it from? That was important; if it was from his old Lair, it was likely to be an enemy, and might cause trouble for him and for Shana if it knew they were here. If it was from another Lair, there was no telling how it would feel about them, and it still might cause trouble for them.
So just at the moment, it didn’t look as if it would be a good dung to just stroll up to it and greet it in the dragons’-tongue, or speak to it mind to mind. Best to keep quiet and study the situation, perhaps.
So he continued to watch the beast as the sun sank and twilight turned the sky a deep blue, adjusting his eyes to compensate for the growing darkness. Insects called from the grass around him, and the herds settled for the night
His secret weapon was Kalamadea; if this was a stranger, the presence of Kalamadea, the oldest dragon in any of the Lairs he knew, could be enough to make it simply go away if it came to a conflict. Unless, of course, it was from his old Lair, in that case, it might go away peacefully, unless it happened to be one of a handful of dragons who would be only too happy to discover mat Kalamadea was as helpless as he and Shana, and who would take immediate advantage of the situation.
He debated the question with himself as twilight turned to true night, and as the moon rose to gild the backs of the cattle with a soft dusting of light, without coming to any land of a conclusion. He started to head back to the tent and the others, but found himself drifting back toward the herd to stare at the not-cow and ponder his options.
I wonder; she—if it is a “she” and the sex as well as the form hasn’t been shifted—is just as vulnerable as we are right at this moment. As Kalamadea pointed out when we were caught, shifting takes time, and if I raised a fuss about her, she wouldn’t be able to get away quietly.
The not-cow was watching him as warily as he was watching her, as a soft evening breeze ruffled his hair. Had she noticed his regard? Could she see dragon-shadows too?
If she can—then she knows. And if she knows, she could get away as soon as I leave and she can work her way beyond the edge of the herds, out of sight of the herdsmen,
That decided him; he had no options now, and there was no time to get Kalamadea. He was going to have to do something, and he’d better figure out what it was, and quickly!
The dragon-cow moved uneasily, and he knew that she realized he was watching her. She had just forced him to act
He could only hope that what he was about to do would be the right action for all of them.
Rhiadorana had chosen to follow this clan of the Iron People mostly because they happened to be passing through her Lair’s territory during the season she had chosen to undergo her Adult Trial. Her Lair had the custom of sending the adolescents out one at a time to spend at least a season shifted into a single form—generally one in which they could spy on the doings of humans. Humans, not elven lords; the elves were too far away, quite out of the Lair’s territory, and too dull and predictable to prove to be any danger or even challenge to the Lair. There had been some rumors a few seasons ago to the effect that the situation among the elves had changed drastically, but they were still too far away to bother with. Life in the mountains and plains of the South and West was quite exciting enough without going that far afield only to be disappointed.
It had been a real trial to control her shape for such an extended period of time, but that was the point of the exercise, after all. It had turned out that she had made a good choice of subjects, too, for this clan, driven out of their old range by an extended drought, was doing some entirely new things for the tradition-bound Iron People. If Dora was any judge, there was going to be a revolution here, and the War Chief was going to try to become the only leader of the clan. She’d shifted into a beast of burden that bore his brand upon her precisely so she could hear rumors about him, and even some of his own intriguing, and what she had learned was going to be very valuable to the Lair. He had ambitions, did Jamal. He wanted to be the ruler of all the Iron People. And the way things were going, he just might be able to achieve that goal, especially if old Diric underestimated his ambition or his guile. This was an unusual Clan even without Jamal; they were the only Clan Dora had ever seen that had ever taken elven slaves. They could turn out to be unusual in other ways as well, perhaps enough to be a threat to the Folk.
That had been quite enough to keep her here, many weeks past when she might otherwise have gone home. The Folk needed someone here, at least to see whether Diric or Jamal won in the imminent power struggle. So she stayed, and was pretending to graze at the edge of the herd when the new prisoners were brought in.
They looked like elves—but they weren’t elves. No elven lord or lady had ever boasted tanned skin, or hair of any color other than palest blond. Their ears were gently pointed, not the lance-headed shape of the aristocratic elves. She had stared in bovine astonishment as they were chained to the tail of a wagon pending their disposition—and then as she stared at them more closely, she got another shock.
Two of them had dragon-shadows.
She hadn’t known what to think or do then. Immediate instinct urged her to come to their rescue, but prudence dictated a more cautious course. They might not want to be rescued. They might be here on purpose; this might be part of a plan of their own, and by rescuing them, she might spoil it
They might also be on their own Adult Trials, and to interfere would be to cast disgrace on them. A dragon who encountered difficulties during her Adult Trial was supposed to get herself out of them. That was the point of it being a trial, after all. How could it be a trial if someone else rescued you? She didn’t think any of the others had been planning to follow her to this Clan of Iron People, but it was always possible that they had.
One of the two dragons had been watching her all day, and she began to suspect that he had spotted her for what she was. So since all the Lair knew that she was making her own trial here, he would recognize her. This was not necessarily a bad thing—
Unless he was not an adult, this was not part of a clever scheme on his part, and he planned to get himself out of his own troubles by making trouble for her!
She eyed him dubiously, aware of a growing hunger that no amount of grass was going to cure. She needed to kill and feast on real meat at least once every two or three days, even in this form, and she was overdue. Ordinarily she would simply drift to the edge of the herd, work her way into the darkness, shift, and fly off. She’d be back before the herdsman noticed she was gone, good for another two or three days of acting like a cow. But with this stranger here—if she started to “stray,” he could call attention to her before she could get away, shouting to the herdsman. As long as he was here, she didn’t dare move!