He inspected his tools and they met his satisfaction. He set them out in a careful row. “So, you’ll help me. Or you can be stubborn and try to keep it all for yourself. Try that, and I’ll take just what I want. Won’t be as easy without someone to handle the animal for me, keep it calm and lure it to the blade. But I can get more than enough to live the rest of my days as a very rich man.” He thumbed the edge of the knife, nodded to himself, and looked directly at Sedric. “Well. Time for a decision. Shall we get on with it?”
Sedric swallowed. Reality seemed to re-form around him. Leftrin had been part of this man’s plan to acquire and sell dragon parts? Then he’d probably just been using Alise all that time. Alise had been duped. And he’d been blind to the machinations going on all around him. He should have guessed. He should have known that he wouldn’t be the only one to see the chance for profit. He’d known all along there had to be some bizarre motive behind the captain’s apparent infatuation. So now what? Did he take the hunter’s offer? Could he coax and calm the dragon until Jess got close enough for a kill?
The man had set it all out quite plainly. If he helped him, Jess would help him get to Chalced and sell what they had. He didn’t need to go back to Bingtown at all. From Chalced, he could send Hest a message to come and join him. With the kind of money they’d have, there’d be no need for any more pretenses. They could go anywhere they wanted and live exactly as they pleased. He could have everything he’d dreamed of. He’d paid dearly already. Would it be so wrong to take some small measure of happiness for himself?
Jess was watching him closely. His raspy voice became persuasive, the threat gone from it. “Animal’s going to die anyway. Look at it. It wasn’t a prime specimen to start with, and now it’s going to drown. So you might as well be kind and make the end a quick one and have something to show for your trouble.” Jess hung the knife from his belt and gripped the fish spear firmly. He slung the coil of line from his free hand. “Tell her not to struggle, that I’m going to help her,” he instructed Sedric in a low voice. “All I need you to do right now is keep her calm. Say I’m putting the rope on her to help her stay afloat. It’s not as long as it could be; I’ll need to get her to move closer to the trees so I can tie it off. Afterward, we’ll have to work fast, before the carcass sinks. We’ll go for the stuff that will keep and bring the most money. Teeth, claws, scales. It’s going to be messy, rough work and you won’t like it. But a little of this now will mean a lot of money later.”