Page 70 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Instead of returning to its meal, the crawler advanced toward Thomas and me, the dozens of legs falling in a rhythmic pattern that was viscerally unpleasant—spiderish, but more so. We backed away hurriedly.
The fragment of wax came out. I aimed and pressed the plunger again. A spurt shot straight, then the plunger struck the end of the tube. Empty.
Had I hit it? The crawler was hissing.
“Get behind me,” I said to Thomas. I dug the bottle of essence from my reticle and uncorked it. “Everyone stay back.”
“I could whack it with the rake,” Thomas offered.
“That will make it angry.” Even small crawlers were hard to kill. The shell on this one looked thick.
“Itisangry,” he pointed out.
The front three sections lifted in the air, and an unpleasant, slug-like appendage emerged between the pincers. A tongue? It wriggled, as if tasting the air. The body dropped and crept nearer.
I set my feet, held the bottle of essence at arm’s length, and waited. But I must not use it all. There was no longer a shortage—the Britons were making new batches regularly—but the rest of my supply was in the syringes. If someone was stung, I would have to dash up four flights of stairs to the observatory—
The crawler shot forward like a striking snake. I yelped and dumped the bottle, dousing my shoe, spraying my skirt, and—I was certain this time—splashing the crawler. I scrambled back and collided with Thomas. We untangled, separating left and right, and he raised the rake like an ax.
The crawler was writhing, the body coiling and twisting in endless figures. That slowed to quivers and a sad rattling sound, then stilled.
I edged closer. The crawler was not completely still. There was a slight, rhythmic flexing. Respiration.
I took the rake from Thomas, hooked a prong under the crawler’s body, andlifted it, dangling, into the cage. I pulled the lid down with the rake, then gingerly locked it.
“It worked,” I said, rather relieved given that not everything went according to plan. “The essence does affect it.” I knelt on the grass and peered through the steel mesh. Seeing a large crawler this close was like viewing a specimen under a microscope. Already I saw fresh details. There were twin rows of pin-prick holes along the body’s shell segments—supplementary breathing? Tiny flutters affected the legs in unison, like a team of oarsmen.
“Will it turn into a draca?” Thomas asked, kneeling beside me. He had been fascinated by the larva’s transformation to a needledrac.
“I think that unlikely. The larva we treated was in metamorphosis, so the essence could affect its development. This crawler is mature.” The pincers had folded into depressions in its head, but they were beginning to wiggle and click. “The passage I read says the effect is temporary—”
“What are youdoing?” Georgiana cried behind me.
I scrambled to my feet, brushing grass off my skirts.
Georgiana had worn no bonnet—her hair was loose—and she had bedroom slippers on her feet. She must have run from the house. Her hands were clenched, the tendons standing like wire.
My stomach tilted with irrational guilt. “Do not be angry.”
“I saw through the window,” she said, angrily. “You could have beenkilled!” The word rasped. I had never heard her voice break like that.
“It was perfectly…” I almost said safe, but that was untrue. “It was a necessary risk. I needed to test—”
“You did notneedto do anything. Not without me.”
My guilt transformed into a healthy dose of irritation. “I didnotneed you. It is an experiment to determine the effect of draca essence on crawlers. I read that—”
Georgiana interrupted with a snort. Something sharp lodged beneath my sternum.
I took a breath, trying to settle a surge of hurt and anger. “Are you going to scold me for reading, like Mamma does?”
“I am scolding you for taking risks.” She pointed at the caged crawler. Her finger was shaking. “That is a monster. What if you were stung?”
“I have treated crawler stings. I would treat myself as best I could. Soldiers are dying from these. They need defenses. This is not a time to shy from risk.”
She was silent for a breath, then, “What if Thomas were stung?”
“Youare angry about me, not Thomas.” That much I was sure of. Thomas was witnessing this, which must be unpleasant, so I said to him, “You did nothing wrong. Will you excuse us? Georgiana and I will discuss this privately.”
