Hurt could be expressed as silence. Thymara suddenly knew that, for she heard Alise’s pain and it drove her out of the darkness. Dropping all pretence that she had not overheard their conversation, she sprang to the older woman’s defence. ‘I do not know why either one of us would wish to serve such an arrogant, ungrateful creature as you!’ she exclaimed as she stepped between them.

  ‘Ah. Good evening, little sneak. Did you enjoy your time lurking in darkness, listening to us?’ Aggression puffed out the dragon’s chest, and she seemed almost luminous in her anger. A silvery blue glow surrounded her, setting off the growing rows of fringe on her neck. The dragon’s light struck coppery ripples from the gown Alise wore. It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight, the gleaming copper woman with shining red hair against the silver and blue of the dragon. They were like a scene out of an old tale or a tapestry, and if Thymara had not been so angry with the dragon, her beauty would have captured her. Sintara sensed her wonder and began to preen herself, lifting her wings and shaking them out so that their glow was unmistakable. They were opalescent and larger than Thymara recalled them.

  ‘I grow stronger and more beautiful each day,’ the dragon echoed her thought effortlessly. ‘Those who have said I will never fly will one day eat their words. Only Tintaglia can rival me for beauty and power, and a day will come when that will not be so. I am not ashamed to say so of myself. I know what I am. So why should I tolerate the company of a timid little prey beast, who bleats and squeaks her pity for herself, who will not even challenge the male who presents himself.’

  ‘Challenge the male’ Alise’s icy voice melted and dribbled away in confusion.

  ‘Of course.’ The dragon derided her lack of comprehension. ‘He has presented himself. He is strong enough and in good health. He follows you, sniffing after your scent. He flatters you and acknowledges your cleverness. You cannot hide from me that you are aware of his desire for you and that you find him attractive. But before you can take him, you should present to him a challenge. For you, there can be no mating flight, no battle in the air as he struggles to mount you and you evade him and test his skills in flight. But there are other ways of old that Elderling males once proved themselves. Set him a challenge.’

  ‘I am not an Elderling,’ Alise declared. Silently Thymara remarked that she did not challenge any of Sintara’s other comments. So who was the suitor that Sintara deemed worthy of Alise? Sedric, she knew abruptly. The beautiful Bingtown man that had seemed to be at Alise’s beck and call. Was Alise the reason he had come ashore tonight? Did he hope for a tryst with her? A voyeuristic thrill coursed through Thymara at that thought, shocking her. What was the matter with her? Sternly she refused to imagine them locked and rocking belly to belly as Jerd and Greft had been.

  ‘And I am a married woman.’ Alise’s second assertion seemed, not a statement of fact, but an admission of doom.

  ‘Why do you bind yourself to a mate you do not desire?’ the dragon asked. Her confusion seemed genuine. ‘Why do you obey a rule that only frustrates you? What do you gain from it?’

  ‘I keep my word,’ Alise replied heavily. ‘And my honour. We entered into a bargain, Hest and I. In good faith we spoke promises to keep to one another and have no other. I wish I had not. Truly, I had no idea what I was giving up. For scrolls and a comfortable home and good food on the table, I bargained away myself. It was a stupid bargain, but one we have both kept in good faith. So, when all this is done, I will leave Leftrin and my dragons and my days of being alive. I will go home and do my best to conceive an heir for my husband. It is what I promised to do. And if you think me a squeaking and bleating prey beast in the clutches of a predator, well, perhaps I am. But perhaps it takes a different kind of strength to keep my word when every bone in my body cries out for me to break it.’

  Sintara snorted disdainfully. ‘You do not believe he has kept his promises.’

  ‘I have no proof that he has broken them.’

  ‘No. You are the only proof that he has broken something.

  You are broken.’ The dragon’s pronouncement was delivered heartlessly.

  ‘Perhaps. But I have kept my word and my honour intact.’ Alise’s voice had grown more and more ragged as she spoke. As she affirmed her honour, that she would keep her word, she bowed her face into her hands. For a time, she choked in silence. Then thick, painful gasps of mourning escaped her. Thymara stepped forward and hesitantly patted Alise’s shoulder. She had never attempted to console anyone before. ‘I understand,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘You are choosing the only honourable path. But it is hard for you. And even harder when people think you are a fool for keeping your word.’

  Alise lifted a tear-stained face. Impulsively, Thymara put her arms around her. ‘Thank you,’ the older woman said brokenly. ‘For not thinking me stupid.’

  The rain was coming down again, harder this time. Leftrin pulled his knitted cap down over his ears and squinted through the darkness and the downpour. He’d had a long day, and all he really wanted to do was settle down at his galley table with some hot tea, a bowl of chowder and a red-headed woman who smiled at his jokes, and said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to his crew’s efforts at courtesy. Little enough, he thought to himself, for a man to ask out of life. As he’d clambered down to the shore and stalked off across the muddy flat, Tarman’s painted gaze had followed him sympathetically. The ship knew his errand, and knew how much he disliked it.

  It was just like that bastard Jess to demand he meet him out here in the rain and dark. They’d been exchanging silence and glares for several days now. Leftrin had been successfully avoiding conversation with the man by refusing to be alone with him. But tonight, just as he’d been getting ready to settle in by the warm galley stove, he’d found a note in the bottom of his coffee mug.

  He’d done his best to slip away unobtrusively from his gathered crew. No one seemed to mark his departure. He moved quietly through the dark, veering away from the keepers and their bonfire. A burst of wind carried their laughter and the smell of cooking fish toward him as it whipped the flames higher. He’d no wish for anyone to see him ashore tonight.

  Wind and the spattering rain and the dark all cloaked him as he approached the silver dragon. That, he took it, was the cryptic location for his meeting with Jess. ‘Meet me by silver or the secret is out.’ That was all the note had said, but it was a threat he could not ignore. The dragon had his front feet braced on something and was tearing chunks of meat loose from it. He knew a wild moment of hope that it was eating Jess. Another two steps and he could see that it had been something with four legs. The hunter had brought the dragon a bribe to keep him occupied while they talked. And it had worked. He watched the silver tear a leg loose from the carcass. The silver’s condition had improved since he had first seen the creature, but he was still smaller and less healthy than the other dragons. His tail had healed but he seemed to acquire parasites much more often than the other dragons. The dragon became aware of Leftrin and shifted to watch him as he chewed on the hoofed leg.

  ‘Evening, Captain,’ Jess greeted him as he walked around the dragon’s shoulder. ‘Fine night for a stroll.’

  ‘I’m here. What do you want?’

  ‘Not so much. Just a little cooperation, that’s all. I saw an opportunity this afternoon, and thought we should take it.’

  ‘An opportunity?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Jess patted the dragon on its shoulder. The silver rumbled a growl at the hunter but his focus was still on the meat. ‘He growls but he’s used to me. I’ve been slipping him an extra ration of meat every chance I got. He doesn’t mind me at all now.’ As he spoke, he opened his coat, displaying a hatchet, two long knives and one short-bladed one, all neatly sheathed in pockets concealed inside his vest. He tipped his head slightly towards the silver. ‘Shall we begin?’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Leftrin said quietly.

  ‘Not at all.’ The man smiled. ‘Once he finishes eating that deer, he’s going to want a very long nap. From the start, I planned for this possibility, and came prepared. I cut that deer’s belly open and put a large quantity of valerian and poppy in before I offered it to the silver. Enough to drop a dragon, I think. We’ll find out soon enough.’ He pulled his coat closed against the wind and rain and stood grinning at Leftrin.

  ‘I’m not doing this. We won’t get away with it, and I’m just not doing it.’

  ‘Of course we’ll get away with it. I’ve thought it all through. Dragon falls asleep, and we make sure it’s forever. We spend a quiet hour or two claiming the most marketable parts. We take them back on board the Tarman and head downriver. Tonight.’

  ‘And the keepers and the other dragons?’

  ‘In this wind and rain? They’ll notice nothing until we’re gone, and then they’ll discover that we’ve disabled their boats. I doubt that anyone will ever hear of them again.’

  ‘And what do we tell the folks in Trehaug?’

  ‘We don’t even stop there. Downriver, fleet as an arrow, and then up the coast to Chalced. You’ll live like a king there, with your lady. I’ve seen how you look at her. This way, at least, you end up with her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that the other way, the path I take if you refuse, you lose everything. I tell the dragons and the keepers that you used a dragon cocoon to give your precious Tarman a bigger supply of wizardwood. Your crew is in on it, obviously. They know how little they actually work to push that barge along. I don’t think the dragons will think well of you, knowing that you’ve already butchered one of their kind for your own ends. I believe they’re annoyed by such things. And your pretty red-haired lady may see you as not quite so honourable as she thought. False, even. Treacherous, if I do my work well.

  ‘So, you see, you can help me harvest one mindless, unclaimed, stunted dragon and take your lady, crew and yourself off to an indolent and indulgent life in Chalced. Or you can be stubborn and I’ll unravel you and destroy everything you have or ever hope to have.’ He smiled, squinting into the rain as he added, ‘After they turn on you, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up with both your ship and your lady. I’ve put in quite a few evenings cultivating trust and friendship among the keepers, while you wasted time courting your giddy little woman. And I suspect I’ll have an ally in that Bingtown dandy. Or are you going to continue to pretend that all of you are innocent of any schemes?’

  The dragon bent his head and picked up the animal’s ribcage in his mouth. His jaws closed on it, crushing it. He began a slow mastication, crushing and folding the rest of the animal in on itself. Leftrin stepped towards the silver, intending to intervene. The dragon blasted a snarl at him past the meat in his mouth. The stench of his breath made Leftrin blanch and step back as much as the threat.

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t trust you,’ Jess snidely commiserated. ‘I don’t think he’ll let you rescue him. Stupid damn lizard. Looks like we’re committed, Cap. Once he goes down, it’s time to butcher. I’ll just go take care of those boats right now.’

  The man’s cockiness would have been enough to provoke Leftrin at any time without the threat to his dreams. As he passed Leftrin in the driving rain, Leftrin turned and launched himself at him. He’d beat him senseless and feed him to the dragon. Poor Jess. Must have somehow provoked the dumb beast. Can scarcely blame a dragon for being a dragon, Alise.

  But Jess spun to meet him, teeth white in a merry snarl and a shining blade in his hand.

  Sintara watched the two human females in consternation. Now, what did this mean, this clutching and sharing of tears? It wasn’t hunting, nor fighting, nor mating, nor any sensible activity that she could name. She wanted them to stop. ‘Did either of you bring me food?’ she demanded.

  Thymara stepped away from Alise and wiped her sleeve across her wet face. ‘I didn’t have a chance to hunt today. I think the hunters got some fish.’

  ‘I already ate what Carson said was “my share”. It was pitiful.’

  ‘I suppose I could go and—’

  ‘Quiet!’ Sintara barked at her. There was something, a distant noise like the roaring of a huge wind. She sensed distress and anger from the silver dragon. As always, his thoughts were poorly formed, but something was alarming him.

  ‘What is it?’ she roared at him and to the other dragons in general. The sound was growing louder now; even the humans could hear it. She saw Thymara turn her head and shout. Alise clutched at her and her head swivelled back and forth, seeking the source of the noise. The roar was coming closer, but she felt no increase in the wind or driving rain. The sound grew louder, with a grinding base to it mixed with sudden cracks and snaps.

  ‘It’s the river! It’s a flood!’ Mercor’s bellow slammed into her mind, and with his warning, ancient memories leapt into Sintara’s awareness.

  ‘Fly! Get above the water!’ she trumpeted, for in that moment she forgot what she was, half a dragon, bound to the earth. The darkness could not completely mask the danger. She stared upriver and saw white lace on a grey cliff face and tumbling tree trunks in the cliff’s liquid face.

  ‘Run for the trees!’ Thymara shouted, but by then only the dragon could hear her small voice through the thundering water. She saw the two women, hands clutched together, turn and begin to run.

  ‘Too late!’ she bellowed at them. She stretched out her head, seized Alise by the shoulder and snatched her off her feet. The woman screamed. The dragon paid no attention as she craned her neck and set her down between her wings. ‘Hold tight!’ she warned her.

  Thymara was fleeing. Sintara thundered after her.

  Then the wave hit them.

  It was not just water. The force of it rolled boulders and carried sand. Old driftwood was tangled with trees newly torn from the earth. Sintara was bowled off her feet and pushed along. A log thudded against her ribs, knocking her sideways. The churning mass of water carried her inexorably downriver. For a moment, she was plunged completely underwater. She struck out, swimming vigorously for what she hoped was the surface and the bank. All was chaos, water and darkness. Dragons, humans, boats, logs and boulders mixed and mingled in the flood water. Her head broke free of the water, but the world no longer made sense. Sintara spun in the current, paddling desperately. She could not find the shore. All around her, the water streamed white under the night sky. She caught a glimpse of Tarman’s lights, and saw an empty boat seized by the leafy branches of a floating tree. The immense driftwood log that had been the heart of the keepers’ bonfire floated past her, streaming smoke and crowned still with a branch of glowing embers.

  ‘Thymara!’ she heard Alise shout, and only then became aware that the woman still clung to her wings. ‘Save her! Look, Sintara, see her! There! There!’

  She didn’t see the keeper girl, and then she did. The girl was trying to struggle free of a mass of floating brush. It had entangled her clothing. Soon it would engulf her and she would be pulled under as it sank. ‘Stupid humans!’ Sintara bellowed. She struck out for her, only to be hit broadside by Ranculos as the water shoved him past her. When she recovered and looked at the floating mass of brush, the girl was gone. Too late.

  ‘Thymara! Thymara!’ Alise was shrieking, but her voice was full of hopelessness.

  ‘Which way is the shore?’ the dragon bellowed at her.

  ‘I don’t know!’ the woman shrieked back. Then, ‘Over there! That way. Swim that way.’ Alise’s shaking hand pointed in the direction they were already going. Encouraged, the dragon struck out more strongly. She could not climb the trees for safety, but she could wedge herself between them and wait out the worst of this flooding.

  ‘There! Right there!’ Alise shrieked again. But she was not pointing to the shore, but to a small, white, upturned face in the water. Thymara’s hands reached out and up to her.

  ‘Please!’ she screamed.

  Sintara bent her head and dragged her keeper from the river’s grasp. ‘Mine!’ she trumpeted defiantly around Thymara’s dangling body. ‘Mine!’

  Day the 17th of the Prayer Moon

  Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

  From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

  to Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

  A message from Trader Korum Finbok of the Bingtown Traders, sent at the behest of and in support of a query by Traders Meldar and Kincarron, seeking more information about the departure of Alise Kincarron Finbok and Sedric Meldar on the liveship Tarman.

  Detozi,

  A small note. The families of Sedric Meldar and Alise Finbok are absolutely frantic, with both declaring that neither of them would voluntarily depart on an expedition that might take months before they return, Alise Finbok’s husband is on an extended trading voyage, but her father-in-law has been persuaded to put his considerable fortune to work in an effort to gain more information. If you know of anyone capable of travelling swiftly up the river and taking a message bird or two with them, they might earn a substantial reward from this.

  Erek

  CHAPTER FIVE

  White Flood

  Leftrin’s hands locked around Jess’ throat. The hunter was raining body blows on the captain’s midsection. Leftrin thought he had cracked ribs from the beating and he tasted blood from his smashed lips, but he kept his grip. It was a matter of time. If he could throttle him long enough, the punishing punches would stop. Already they were losing strength and when both Jess’ hands rose to clutch at Leftrin’s wrist, he knew it was over except for that final stretch of endurance. The hunter clawed at his wrists, but Leftrin’s hands were toughened, not just by scales but by too-frequent immersions in river water. His scar tissue resisted Jess’ nails. He could not see Jess’ face, but he knew his eyes would be bulging by now. He squeezed harder, imagining the man’s tongue starting to protrude from his mouth.