“Very well. ” The captain’s anger was actually helping him behave as if he were calm. Sintara could almost see it shimmering around him. “Greft is no longer your keeper. I’ve no problem with that. I do have a problem with your battering my ship!”
Kalo opened his mouth wide. For a moment, Sintara feared he would release a venom mist. Of late, all of the serpents had acquired enough venom to be dangerous, but Kalo was largest of all and had always had a bad temper. He probably could release enough venom to kill every human aboard the Tarman as well as do extreme damage to the liveship. On the deck, some of the keepers scrambled away in alarm. Leftrin crossed his arms on his chest and stood, legs splayed wide. Beside him, gritting her teeth so hard that they showed, Alise tucked her hand into his arm and stood beside him. As the keepers retreated to the stern of the ship, the crew moved forward to flank their captain. Even Tarman knew he was too ponderous to flee such an attack. She sensed one lash of his hidden tail, and then the liveship stood his ground, facing Kalo.
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Just as Sintara gathered her muscles to slam into him and spoil his aim, Kalo tucked his head into his chest. She winced, imagining the burn of Kalo’s swollen poison glands as he denied them release. Then he slowly lifted his head. “I demand a new keeper,” he said harshly. “One of my own choosing. ”
Most of the keepers had mustered their courage and were creeping forward to watch the confrontation. She saw Thymara in the forefront. At her elbow, Sylve looked heartsick. Her eyes clung to Mercor, begging him not to make her choose between the dragons and her human companions. Foolish, foolish girl. If she did not stand by the dragon, she stood to lose everything.
Thymara showed no sign of such schism. She looked at Sintara, her mouth a flat line. She’d expected something like this, Sintara decided. She looked at the girl, at her defiant glare, and found that it pleased her. Yes. Thymara had long recognized what she was, and she had expected the dragons to behave as dragons.
Leftrin had glanced back over his shoulder at the keepers assembling on the deck behind him. “That’s keeper business. ” He spoke flatly. “It has nothing to do with my boat or my crew. That’s for you to discuss with the keepers. ”
“All the keepers are taken,” Kalo responded. “There were never enough to begin with. ”
“I have no keeper!” the silver dragon suddenly bellowed. “Am I not a dragon? Where is the one who will serve me?”
“Silence!” Kalo roared at him. “This is my time, lump!”
In response, Spit flung his head back. Sintara knew what would come next and saw with absolute clarity that his venom would hit not just Kalo but that the drift would encompass the ship and keepers as well. Thymara had reached the railing and was staring in horror.
Sintara and Mercor hit Spit simultaneously, crashing into the smaller silver dragon from both sides. She feared the water would not be deep enough, but they both bore him down and succeeded in submerging him. His venom sprayed, silver-gray, into the water. All around them, dragons were trumpeting in anger and dismay as they moved hastily away from the spreading toxins. The current here was not swift. As it spread visibly in the water, Tarman raised himself on his stumpy legs and scuttled sideways to avoid it, dragging his anchor after him. On board the ship, Captain Leftrin was roaring threats of vengeance at Spit while the keepers and crew shouted in dismay and fear. For a time, noise and disorder prevailed. Then, as Spit struggled to his feet, Mercor clamped his jaws on the smaller dragon’s throat. He dragged him upright and spoke through his teeth. “Will you keep the peace while we speak, or shall I kill you now?”
Spit rolled his eyes wildly. Mercor’s threat was unprecedented. He had no right: this was no battle for a mate. But none of the other dragons offered Spit support in any way. Even so, Spit did not concede. His trumpeting was strangled, but his thoughts reached them all. “I’ve a right to a keeper! More right than Kalo! He did not teach his keeper proper respect and now he discards him and demands a new one. When I have not had one at all! Is this fair? Is this just?”
Mercor did not relax his grip. To the contrary, he lifted his head even higher, stretching Spit’s silver throat. The smaller dragon made a noise, a sound that was pain but not surrender. Mercor growled through his teeth. “You have not been neglected. My own tender spent hours upon you, as did others, grooming you and bringing you meat at a time when you were scarcely better than a riverpig. No one owes you anything. I release you now. Keep silent until Kalo has finished. Then speak your words. But if you spit venom again, or try, I will kill you and eat your memories. ”
Disdainfully, he flung the smaller dragon aside. Spit splashed into the shallow water, righted himself, scrabbled away, and then turned back to face them all. He tucked his head tight to his neck, a threatening gesture as if he were filling his poison sacs. When Mercor turned slowly to stare at him, the smaller dragon rumbled quietly but lifted his head. There were angry glints of red in his spinning silver gaze. Trickles of blood ran down his neck, outlining his scales in scarlet.
Kalo slowly moved closer to the Tarman. The blue-black dragon had grown since they’d left Trehaug. He now looked down on the ship and the humans aboard it when he stood alongside it. “I require a keeper,” he said quietly.
Leftrin stood his ground. “All the keepers are spoken for, unless you wish to take Greft back into your service. ”
From the stern of the boat, Greft shouted angrily, “I will serve no dragon!”
Jerd had been standing beside him. She gave him a look the dragon could not read, and then she walked away to join the cluster of keepers who stood at the railing looking anxiously at their dragons.
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Sintara was shocked when Thymara lifted her hand. “Kalo! I will serve you, if it will mean no harm to this ship or the humans aboard him. Sintara has indicated her dissatisfaction with me more than once. Still, I have continued to hunt what meat I could and to groom her as she requests. This I will do for you, also, if it brings peace to us. ”
“And what about me?” Spit demanded furiously before Kalo could even reply. Several dragons turned to hiss at him warningly.
But before Kalo could speak further, Sintara surged forward. She lifted her head to pin Thymara with a glare. “I have not released you from my service, human. ” She turned to face Kalo, who had looked intrigued at the girl’s offer. “This girl is not free for your choosing. She is of my blood and my shaping. You cannot have her. ”
“Of your blood!” Thymara sounded outraged. “You have not given blood to me, nor spoken to me of shaping. ”
“Nonetheless, you have had my blood and I am aware of your shaping. I do not need to speak to you if I do not choose to do so! This one is mine, Kalo. I keep her. Choose another. ”
“I have told you. There are no others!” Leftrin tried to put thunder in his voice and failed. Kalo’s head was hovering over the ship, considering the bunched keepers as if he were selecting a ewe from a flock of terrified sheep. How clearly that ancient memory came to Sintara. Those had been good times, of easy feeding on the pasturelands outside Kelsingra. The sheep and cattle had been fattened for them, grained on oats that grew in abundance in the cultivated fields there. And higher up the slopes, in the surrounding hills and mountains, there had been goats, gamy and delicious. For a moment, her thoughts and life were abducted to that other time, to being a dragon who was tended and fed, not by one small human but by a city of Elderlings and the humans who served them.
In the context of those memories, she saw Kalo lower his head. She saw the keepers cringe, just as sheep had once cowered before a dragon. But Kalo swept past them, to Leftrin’s crew and the hunters who stood on the roof of the deckhouse. With his muzzle, he nudged a boy, nearly sending him flying. “This one I will have. ”
“No,” shouted Carson, but before the hunter could speak another word, the youngster shouted, “Yes!” Davvie turned to Carso
n and spoke quickly and clearly. “I want to do this, Uncle. ” He glanced down at the gathered keepers, caught the eye of one of them, and grinned. He turned back to Carson. “I’ll be Kalo’s keeper. ”
“Why is he choosing you, Davvie?” Carson demanded.
The dragon responded before the boy could. “I’ve seen him walking among us. He hunts well. He doesn’t show fear. I’m taking him. ”
“It will be all right,” Davvie responded. “You’ll see, Uncle. I think it’s the place in the world that I’ve been looking for. I’ll be with friends. ”
“You had rather stay with the dragons and your friends than go where I go?”
Davvie looked at him. “I know you, Uncle. You will stay with them, also. ”
“Then he can be my keeper!” This announcement came from Spit. “If Kalo can claim a hunter as his own, then I can take one for myself as well. I take Carson the hunter as my keeper, to tend me and to be changed by me as I require. There, that’s done. ”
“Nothing is done!” Leftrin roared again, and this time he did manage the thunder. “We are not your cattle!”
“Leftrin. It will be all right. ”
Sintara was surprised to hear Carson accede to Spit’s demand. Was it because of the boy? She watched as the hunter glanced once at the boy, but twice at the man at his side, Sedric. Now why was a keeper standing with the hunter? Why was he not with the rest of the keepers? It was a curious thing but not one that she felt she had to decipher. Humans were, after all, only humans. Their intellect was limited by the short span of their years. Perhaps that was why Carson was willing to serve Spit. It was almost certain the dragon would shape him as an Elderling. The man had changed quite a bit already, and he was not as young as the other keepers. If Spit wished to have a servant for a reasonable number of years, he would have to change the man just to increase his life span.
Just as she would have to change Thymara. She swung her gaze to stare at her keeper. Yes. What was sensible for Spit was sensible for her as well. She would have to pay attention to the changes in the girl lest they become deadly. And if she was going to have her for longer than an ordinary human’s brief span, then she might as well make her attractive as well as useful. She examined her more closely than she had for days and was almost startled at what she noted. Well, that was unusual, especially for an unguided change. She searched her memories and found no precedents for such an unusual development. Well, the changes had begun; she could shape them but not undo them. The girl would live or not, as humans always did. Thymara was returning her gaze with the same diffidence that she felt for her. That almost warmed her toward her. The human didn’t wish to cling and hide in her shadow. Good. She had no desire to be encumbered that way.
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“Mercor!” Leftrin began, but the dragons paid him no attention. It was settled: whatever the human had to say was of little importance.
“It’s time to leave,” Mercor announced.
Sintara was not the only dragon who cast a longing glance at the warming place; but once the platform had sensed the dragons’ departure from it, it had ceased to create warmth. It was visible now only as an area of open water in the reed-choked slough. She lifted her head and scanned the area, trying to match it to her dragon memories of Elderlings and their habitations. But if any of her ancestors had been here, she either did not recall it, or the area had changed so much that it no longer stirred the recollection. A small dread unfolded inside her. What if Kelsingra was equally changed? What if the marvelous city and the rich farmlands that surrounded it were no more?
Mercor seemed to sense her apprehension. “Water flows from somewhere, and it always flows downhill. If we keep following the current, we will come to higher ground eventually. Somewhere in this world, there must be a place for dragons. We will find it. ”
Kalo trumpeted loudly and set out. The other dragons fell in behind him and followed. None of them looked back to see if the barge would follow. It had to. It must.
Day the 19th of the Gold Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
To Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
Enclosed, an invitation for Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug, from the Dushank Trader family, that he may at his earliest convenience come to visit our home in Trehaug.
Erek,
Please, never let my father or mother know that I have scribbled this message on the outside of their formal invitation to you. My parents have insisted that this must be “done right” as my father portentously puts it! And so he and my mother will hereby formally offer you an invitation to Trehaug and to visit our home. I hope you will not consider them pompous. Please (and I blush as I pen this) ignore their hints that the purpose of your visit is more to visit me than to see the coops and birds. I fear that my parents will embarrass both of us unless we are very firm with them as to the nature of your visit. I warn you also that my father has invented what he thinks is a very cunning door for our fly pens, ones that allow birds to enter and exit freely during the day, but, as evening comes on, he adjusts them so that they may come home but not leave again. He is very proud of this innovation. Please respond as soon as you possibly can. I suspect they will ask me hourly if you are able to come for a visit until we have a definite reply from you.
Detozi
Day the 22nd of the Gold Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
To Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
From Trader Elspin of the Rain Wild Traders to Trader Kerwith of the Bingtown Traders. A sealed message requesting immediate payment of several overdue obligations. This message is sent as a final plea before resorting to a formal request to ask the Bingtown Traders’ Council to enforce payment of your obligations.
Erek,
Please, do not be silly. As my previous message must have reached you now, you must know how delighted we all would be if you are able to come for a visit. I hope you will be able to make arrangements to stay long enough that I can give you a full tour of Trehaug!
Detozi
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GONE ASTRAY
Thymara blinked her eyes, then squeezed them shut. Vertigo spun her. She had been sitting on Tarman’s bow, dangling her legs over the side and considering how big the world had become. The dense cloud and steady rains of the last few days had finally ceased; overhead was an endless canopy of stars that stretched from horizon to horizon. She’d stared up at them too long and had suddenly felt as if she were falling off the deck of the boat and up into the sky. She opened her eyes again and stared out at the water.
The forest was gone. It had retreated, day by day, until now it was no more than a smudge on the horizon. The ship was lost in a flat slough of reeds and rushes. Short trees and bushes with stilt roots stuck up in isolated groves. They had learned these indicated not only the shallowest water but also areas where gallators enjoyed sunning themselves. The dragons did not fear the gallators; they regarded them as a larger meat source. But the larger gallators felt the same way about the keepers and their small boats. The keepers had learned to hang back and let the dragons feed off the gallators before coming close to the stilt bushes. The dragons liked to overnight near the groves. All of them were tired of standing in water, but at least it was shallower by the groves. Captain Leftrin accommodated them, but she knew that he feared grounding Tarman in water so shallow that not even he could scuttle out of the mud.
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The retreating forests had taken all her familiar food sources with them. Now the keepers set nets for fish at night and pulled up reeds and rushes for their thick, starchy roots. A few days ago, they had been lucky when a flock of waterfowl had got entangled in Carson’s fish nets. They’d had fresh meat, but they paid for it in long
hours of attempting to mend the tattered nets. She didn’t like the monotony of the food now and disliked even more her feeling of being useless. With her hunting gear lost in the wave, all she could do was gather. And the only things to gather were the starchy roots or the seedheads from the tall grasses.
At least Sintara had become more attentive to her, if not any kinder. The dragon demanded nightly grooming now. The water made it difficult, and she had had to submit to Thymara climbing on her back and neck in order to reach the parts of her that needed cleaning. Bundled handfuls of reeds and grasses made coarse brushes for dislodging insects and polishing the dragon’s scales, but they were harsh to human hands. Thymara felt sorry for those whose hands were less scaly than her own.
Despite the difficulty of grooming her, Sintara insisted that Thymara be thorough. Thymara had spent most of her evening on the dragon’s wings. Despite her differences with the creature, she had enjoyed it. When Sintara opened her wings now, the delicate traceries of the bone and cartilage and the panels and patterns of her coloring meant that it was like cleaning stained glass. The scales with their serrated edges reminded her of translucent feathers. As large as the dragon’s wings had become, the skin of them remained thin and fine. The overlapping scales could scarcely be separated. Her wings folded so compactly that it seemed almost impossible that so large a spread of wing could fit so smoothly against the dragon’s back. Insects were an irritant when they crept into the folds, and the constant moisture of the river invited wet sores. There was no question that her wings needed daily attention of a kind the dragon could not easily give them. Even so, it seemed to Thymara that Sintara made her spend a ridiculous amount of time on them. Over and over, Sintara demanded that she praise the color and patterns that were developing, that she note the delicate strength of the structure and the fine barbed claws at the tips of each wing rib.
As a result, despite the fact that she’d traveled aboard the barge today rather than paddling one of the boats, she was tired. Tired to the bones, and they ached, too. Her hands hurt, and her back ached around her never-healed injury. That was a pain she was growing accustomed to; she seldom thought about it until a chance touch woke a stab of agony. Furtively she glanced around, and when she was sure no one was looking at her, she slid her hand up under her shirt and cautiously touched the area between her shoulder blades. Hot. Swollen. And a nasty scabby valley down the middle that made her feel queasy. It was almost a relief that Tats wasn’t currently speaking to her, let alone trying to kiss her or touch her. Keeping his wandering hands away from her back had been a challenge, and a behavior that completely confused him. She should have let him touch her there; that would have put a quick end to his heat.