‘Is that another dragon?’ Reyn asked suddenly.
As Leftrin turned his eyes toward the sky, he felt a tingle of interest from his ship. He squinted, but the only colour he could make out was silver. ‘When I left, only Heeby had made it aloft. The others were trying, but none of them were doing too well. It’s one reason I was so startled to see Sintara a few days ago. Still, it doesn’t seem likely …’
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‘It’s Spit!’ Hennesey shouted the news from the afterdeck. ‘Look at that little bastard fly! Can you see him, Tillamon? He’s silver, so when he’s in front of the overcast, he’s a bit hard … there! See him? He just broke out from those clouds. He’s one of the smallest and, to start with, one of the stupidest of the dragons. Looks like he can fly now but even if he’s smart enough to get off the ground, he’s still a mean little package of trouble. When we get to the village, you’d best avoid him. But Mercor, now there’s a dragon you’ll enjoy. ’
Tillamon, her shawl clasped around her shoulders, shaded her eyes with her free hand and nodded to every word. Her cheeks were pink with the chill wind and excitement. And perhaps with something more? Hennesey had seemed more garrulous and social of late. Leftrin glanced at Reyn a bit warily, wondering if the Elderling had noticed that the mate was perhaps just a bit too familiar with the lady. But if Reyn had noticed, his objection was drowned by the sudden shrill wail of his son.
‘Damn the luck,’ he said quietly, and left the captain’s side.
The effect of the baby’s crying on the crew seemed a palpable thing to Leftrin. He wondered if it was because it also seemed to distress the liveship. A shivering of anxiety, probably undetectable to some of the crew members but definitely unnerving to him, ran through the ship. Almost as if in response, Spit dipped one wing to circle overhead, dropping lower with each revolution. Of all the dragons that could take an interest in their arrival, Spit was his least favourite. He was as Hennesey had described him: dim-witted when they had first taken the dragons on, and mean since he had acquired a mind of his own. His temper was uneven, and it seemed to Leftrin that he was the most impulsive of the lot. Even the larger dragons seemed to give him a wide berth when he was in a foul mood.
As he watched, Spit left off circling above Tarman and sped off downriver. Leftrin hoped he’d spied some prey and that he’d hunt, kill, eat and leave them alone. But in a moment, he heard distant shouts and realized that Spit was now circling the Bingtown boat that still stubbornly shadowed them. Leftrin smiled grimly. Not the sort of prey he’d had in mind for Spit. Well, they’d been curious as to what had become of the cast-out dragons that had left Cassarick in mid-summer. Let them have a good look at what one of them had become.
Spit descended another notch, tightening his circle so that no one could mistake the object of his interest. Leftrin watched in amusement tinged with alarm as the distant deck of the pursuit vessel suddenly swarmed with human figures. He could not make out what they were shouting. From the very beginning of their pursuit, they had kept their distance from Tarman, never hailing the other ship nor coming close to tie up beside them in the evenings. They had enacted that quarantine, not Leftrin, but he had chosen not to challenge it.
Now, as Spit circled ever closer to them, he regretted the decision. Regardless of their eventual intent, they were fellow Traders and humans. He wished now that he knew who captained the Bingtown vessel and the temperament of the crew. He wished he had seized an opportunity to caution them against provoking the dragons. They were no longer the earthbound beggars they had been.
‘I never thought they would follow us this far up the river. I was sure we would lose them along the way. ’
Hennesey had joined him on the roof of the deckhouse. When the baby had begun to wail, Tillamon had hastened to see if she could be of any help to Malta, leaving the first mate to recall his duties to the ship. Leftrin glanced over at him. He’d known Hennesey since he was no more than a scupper plug on the ship when Leftrin himself had first come aboard to share that lowly status. Was there a light in his eyes that had never been there before? Hard to tell. Right now, he stared raptly at the drama unfolding downriver.
‘Who could have predicted this? No one. ’ Leftrin wondered if he were trying to evade responsibility. For onto the deck had come a man who now assumed the unmistakable stance of an archer. They were too far away for a warning shout from him to carry to the men on the deck or the circling dragon. They could only watch disaster unfurl.
‘Oh, don’t do it …’ Hennesey groaned.
‘Too late. ’ Leftrin could barely make out the arrow that took flight but he tracked it by Spit’s response. The dragon evaded it easily and then shot skyward, beating his wings hard to gain altitude.
The fools on the Bingtown vessel cheered, thinking they had warded off the dragon’s attack. But as Spit reached the top of his arcing flight, he trumpeted out a wild summons. A strange thrill shot through the liveship; Leftrin saw Hennesey feel it as much as he did. Before either man could comment, distant answering cries came from all directions. Then, in less than a breath, half a dozen dragons, including gleaming Mercor and shimmering Sintara, hove into view. Some came from the city, some simply seemed to appear in the sky as if the clouds had hidden them. Kalo, black as a thundercloud and as threatening, shot toward the circling, keening Spit.
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‘Like crows gathering to harry an eagle,’ Hennesey pointed out, and in an instant, he was proven right. Instead of one dragon circling the hapless ship, a funnel cloud of avengers was forming. Leftrin was left breathless with wonder. How they had grown since last he had seen them, and how their ability to fly had transformed them! He felt awe that he had walked among such fearsome creatures without terror, that he had doctored their injuries and spoken with them. To see them now, glittering and gleaming even in the dimmed sunlight of the overcast day, transformed them from the crippled and wounded creatures he had shepherded into knife-edged predators of incredible power.
On the ship below them, men were bellowing commands and warnings to one another. Their archer had set an arrow to his bow and stood, muscles taut, ready to fire should any dragon descend within range. Leftrin could hear the dragons calling to one another – wild trumpets, distant rumbles of thunder and shrill cries.
‘They’re disagreeing about something,’ Hennesey guessed.
‘Those dragons … can you call to them? Can anyone here persuade one to come to us?’ Malta had joined them. Leftrin turned to look at her, shocked that in the midst of the dragons threatening the other vessel, she still thought only of her child. Then he really saw her and his heart filled with pity.
The Elderling woman looked terrible. The colours of humanity had fled from her face, and the overlay of bluish scaling made the rest of her seem grey, as if someone had ornamented stone. There were lines by her mouth and under her eyes. Her hair had been brushed, braided and pinned up. It was tidy but it did not gleam. Life was draining out of her.
‘I can’t call them, I’m afraid. But we are close to Kelsingra, Malta. As soon as we arrive the keepers will be able to summon them. Even if we could call one here, it could not land and speak with us. Once we are off the river—’
‘Dragon fight!’ Hennesey interrupted them. From Tarman’s deck, there were shouts of amazement. Leftrin turned in time to see Spit diving on the distant ship. He seemed luminous, his silver sparkling like a tumbling coin, and by that the captain knew that his poison glands would be swollen or ready. Matching him in his dive was Mercor: as Spit swept over the ship, the golden dragon came up suddenly beneath him and knocked him off his course. The golden dragon beat his wings strongly, bearing the smaller silver up and away before tilting sideways and away from him, leaving Spit flapping wildly as he fell. As he went down, a pale cloud of sparkling venom shone. Just short of the water, the silver dragon recovered, but not well. He flew, his wings flinging up splashes at the tips, to lan
d awkwardly at the river’s edge. The venom fell too, dispersing as the light wind touched it, landing harmlessly in the river rather than on the ship. From the shore, Spit’s vocalizations were savage and furious.
The crew of the other ship bent energetically to their sweeps. It was moving downriver as fast as the current and its oars could carry it. Overhead, the circling dragons took it in turns to feint dives at the fleeing boat, their trumpeted calls conveying merriment and mockery to Leftrin. After a time, he realized that the boat was scarcely their target any more; they appeared to be competing to see who could dive fastest and swoop closest to it before rising back to join the others. Spit managed to launch himself back into the air but he did not join the others. He flew laboriously, possibly injured from his collision, back toward the heart of Kelsingra. Leftrin continued to watch the Bingtown boat as the dragons harried it out of sight down the river. He waited, but even after it was out of sight, the dragons did not return.
‘They’ve changed,’ Hennesey observed quietly.
‘Indeed they have,’ Leftrin agreed.
‘They’re real now,’ the mate said. More quietly he added, ‘They frighten me. ’
Day the 27th of the Fish Moon
Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Keffria Vestrit, of the Bingtown Traders
To Jani Khuprus of the Rain Wild Traders, Trehaug
Jani, as we both well know, there is no privacy to bird-sent messages any more. If you have anything of great confidentiality, please send it in a packet by any of the liveships that ply the Rain Wild River. I have far more confidence in them than I do in the so-called Bird Keepers’ Guild. I will do the same, save for tidings that must reach you immediately and thus must, unfortunately, be subject to spying and gossip.
Herewith, the bones of what you must know. My messages to Malta are going unanswered. I am gravely concerned, especially since she was so close to giving birth. If you can send me any tidings to put my mind at ease, I would greatly appreciate it.
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Other information also too grave to delay sharing: I have finally heard from Wintrow in the Pirate Isles. You may recall I wrote to him months ago to ask if he knew anything of Selden. As is often the case with letters sent through that region, both my message and his response were greatly delayed. He had no tidings of Elderlings but was alarmed at gossip of a ‘Dragon-Boy’ exhibited in a travelling display of freaks and oddities that had been journeying through his territory. Efforts on his part to learn more were fruitless. He fears that those he has queried have been less than frank for fear of incurring the wrath of the Pirate Queen’s consort. I beg you to use your contacts to ask if anyone has heard of such a travelling exhibition, and where they were last seen.
With great anxiety,
Keffria
CHAPTER SEVEN
City Dwellers
Moving to the city had proved more challenging for the keepers than the dragons, Thymara thought. Kelsingra was a city built for dragons. The broad streets, the immense fountains, the scale of the public buildings all proclaimed that dragons had resided there. Entries were tall and wide, steps were set for a dragon’s tread, and every dimension of every chamber dwarfed humans to insignificance. For keepers who had grown up in the tiny tree-houses of Trehaug and Cassarick, the differences were stunning. ‘It doesn’t feel like I’m inside,’ Harrikin had observed the first time he entered the dragon baths. All the keepers had clustered together, looking up in wonder at the immense frescoes on the ceiling far overhead. Sylve, Thymara, Alum and Boxter had held hands and tried to measure the diameter of one of the supporting pillars. The first night that all the keepers had spent in the city together, they had slept in a cluster in the corner of an immense room, as if the building were a new kind of wilderness in which they had to huddle together against unknown dangers.
For the dragons, it was different. They had prospered since they had gained access to as much warmth as they wanted. After soaking in the baths they had gone on to recall and visit other sites in the city that had been created for the enjoyment of their kind. At the crest of one of the hills, there was a structure where sections of stone wall alternated with glass beneath a domed roof. The ceiling was a strange patchwork of glass and stone as well, while the heat-radiating floor contained shallow pits of sand in varying degrees of coarseness.
The building would have been incomprehensible to her a few years ago. Now she knew at a glance that it was a place for dragons to sprawl on heated sand while watching the life of the city below them or the slow wheeling of the stars by night. She had first seen it when Sintara had summoned her there a few days ago, much to Thymara’s surprise, and bade her search through the cupboards and shelves to see if the tools for dragon grooming remained in their old storage places. While she had looked, Sintara had writhed and wallowed in the sand, near burying herself in the hot particles. She had emerged gleaming like molten blue metal fresh from a furnace.
Time had rendered most of the grooming tools into rust and dust, but a few remained intact. There were small tools with metal bristles of something that rust had not eaten, and brushes like scrubbing brushes, but with the handles crafted of stone and the metal bristles set in clusters. There were metal rasps with the wooden handles long gone, glass flasks with a thickened residue of oil in the bottom, and a gleaming black case that held an assortment of black metal needles and other items she did not comprehend. Specialized tools for grooming dragons, she supposed, and wondered if one day all the niceties of that lost skill would be recalled.
With the smaller brushes, Thymara had performed the delicate grooming around Sintara’s eyes, nostrils and ear-holes, scrubbing away the remnants of messy meals. They had not spoken much, but Thymara had noticed many things about her dragon. Her claws, once blunted from walking and cracked by too much contact with water and mud, were now longer and harder and sharper. Her colours were stronger, her eyes brighter, and she had grown, not just putting on flesh, but gaining length in her tail. Her shape was changing as her muscles took on the duties of flight and forgot the long earthbound years of slogging through mud. This was no great lizard that she groomed, but a raptor, a flying predator that was both as lovely as a hummingbird and as deadly as a living blade. Thymara privately marvelled that she dared touch such a being. It was only when she noticed Sintara’s eyes whirling with pleasure that she realized the dragon was a party to all her thoughts and was relishing her wonder.
As she realized it, the dragon acknowledged it. ‘I awe you. Perhaps you cannot sing my praises with your voice, but reflected in you, I know I am the most magnificent of the dragons you have ever seen. ’
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‘Reflected in me?’
Dragons did not smile, but Thymara felt Sintara’s amusement. ‘Do you fish for compliments?’
‘I don’t understand,’ Thymara replied both honestly and resentfully. The dragon’s response had somehow implied she was vain. About what? About having the most beautiful of the queen dragons? One that alternated ignoring her with mocking or insulting her?
‘The most beautiful of all the dragons,’ Sintara amended her thought for her. ‘And the most brilliant and creative, as is clearly reflected in my having created the most dazzling Elderling. ’
Thymara stared at her wordlessly. The brush hung forgotten in her hand.
Sintara gave a small snort of amusement. ‘From the beginning, I saw you had the most potential for development. It was why I chose you. ’
‘I thought I chose you,’ Thymara faltered. Her heart was thundering. Her dragon thought she was beautiful! This soaring she felt, was it merely Sintara’s beguilement of her? She tried to ground herself but was certain this was not the dragon’s effortless glamorizing of her. This was what Sintara actually thought of her. Extraordinary!
‘Oh, doubtless you thought you chose me,’ Sintara went on with casual arrogance.
‘But I drew you to me. And as you see, I have employed a keen eye and a sure skill to make you the loveliest and most unusual of the Elderlings that now live. Just as I am the most glorious of the dragons. ’
Thymara was silent, wishing she could deny the dragon’s self-aggrandizing, but knowing only a fool would claim to have lied in her thoughts. ‘Mercor gleams like liquid gold,’ she began, but Sintara snorted contemptuously.
‘Drakes! They have their colours and their muscles, but when it comes to beauty they have no patience for detail. Look at Sylve’s scaling some time and then compare it to your own. Plain as grass she is. Even in colouring their own scales, the other dragons lag far behind me. ’ She shook herself and then came suddenly to her feet, erupting out of the hot sand and opening her wings in a single motion. ‘Look at these!’ she commanded proudly, flourishing her wings so that the wind from them sent particles of sand flying into Thymara’s face. ‘Where have you seen such intricacy, such brilliance of colour, such design?’
Thymara stared. Then wordlessly, she dragged her tunic up and over her head, to unfold her own wings. A glance over her shoulder told her that she had not imagined it. The differences were of scale only. She mirrored Sintara’s glory. Dragons did not laugh as humans did, but the sound Sintara made was definitely one of amusement.
The dragon settled herself onto the sand, leaving her wings open over the heated beds. ‘There. Next time you are moaning and snivelling that your dragon has no time for you, look over your shoulder and realize you already wear my colours. What more could any creature ask?’
Thymara had looked back at her basking dragon, torn between emotions. Did she dare trust any display of kindliness from her? ‘You seem different,’ she ventured hesitantly and wondered what the dragon would read more strongly, her suspicion or her hope. She braced herself for mockery. It did not come.
‘I am different. I am not hungry. I am not cold. I am not a crippled, pitiable thing. I am a dragon. I don’t need you, Thymara. ’ Sintara shook herself and excess sand that had been trapped beneath her scales went runnelling down her sides in streams. Without being asked, Thymara found a long-handled brush. The handle was of a strangely light metal, as were the bristles. She studied them for a long moment; they gleamed like metal but flexed at her touch. More Elderling magic, she supposed. She began to apply it to Sintara, working from the back of her head down, dislodging particles of sand that had wedged at the edges of her scaling. Sintara closed her eyes in pleasure. By the time she reached the end of her tail, Thymara had formed her question. ‘Needing me made you dislike me?’