‘I can balance,’ the Bingtown woman replied, and although her voice shook a bit, she kept her upright stance.

  ‘As you wish,’ Thymara replied. ‘I’m crawling.’ She suspected that her many years’ experience in the treetops had taught her not to take risks unless she had to. She scuttled along the log to its widest end, where its snaggled roots reared up out of the river. There she stood, catching hold of the roots. Tats had preceded her. He now gave her a sideways glance and offered, ‘I’ll show you the way I came out here. Parts of this mat are thicker than others.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, and waited for Alise to catch up with her, gathering up the slackened sash as she came. She glanced back at Sintara, feeling a bit guilty that she was letting Sylve do the work of caring for her dragon. The small girl moved confidently, instructing the dragon in what she wished her to do. Thymara sighed with relief. She could handle it.

  ‘Sylve managed to recapture one of the boats,’ Tats said over his shoulder. ‘She’s the one who pulled me out of the water.’

  ‘I remember when I thought she was too young and childish for an expedition like this,’ Thymara observed, and was surprised when Tats laughed aloud.

  ‘Adversity brings out the best in us, I suppose.’ They’d reached the first of the large trees. Thymara paused by it, resting her hand on it. It felt so good. It shivered in the passing current, but even so, it felt more solid than anything she had touched in hours. She longed to sink her claws in the bark and climb, but she was still tethered to Alise.

  ‘There’s one with some lower branches just over there,’ Tats told her.

  ‘A good choice,’ she agreed. Under the trees, the debris was packed more tightly. It still bobbed under her feet with every step she took, but it was easy to dance across it to the tree that Tats had indicated. As she became more confident of simple survival, a hundred other concerns tried to crowd to the forefront of her mind. She held her questions until they reached the tree Tats had indicated. Thymara climbed a short way up it, sank in claws, and then assisted Alise as Tats gave her a boost to start her up the trunk. The Bingtown woman did not climb well, but between the two of them, they managed to get her up the trunk and onto a stout, almost horizontal branch. It was wide enough for her to lie down on, but she sat cross-legged in the exact middle and crossed her arms. ‘Are you cold?’ Thymara asked her.

  ‘No. This robe keeps me surprisingly warm. But my face and hands hurt from the river water.’

  ‘I think my scales kept me from the worst of it,’ Thymara said, and then wondered that she had said it aloud.

  The Bingtown woman nodded. ‘Then I envy you that. This Elderling robe seemed to protect me from the water. I don’t understand how. I got wet, but I dried very quickly. And where the gown touches me, I don’t feel any irritation from the water.’

  Tats was the one to shrug. ‘Lots of Elderling stuff does things you wouldn’t think it could. Wind chimes that play tunes when the wind blows. Metal that lights up when you touch it. Jewels that smell like perfume and never lose their scent. It’s magical, that’s all.’

  Thymara nodded and then asked, ‘How many of us are here?’

  ‘Most of us,’ he said. ‘Everyone has scratches or bruises. Kase got a nasty gash on his leg, but the water seemed to burn it closed. So I suppose there’s a mercy to that as we don’t have anything to use for bandaging. Ranculos got hit in the ribs with something. When he snorts, blood comes out of his nose, but he insists he’ll be fine if we leave him alone. Harrikin has asked that we do that. He says Ranculos doesn’t want any of us fussing over him. Boxter got hit in the face with something; his eyes are blacked and he can barely see out of them. Tinder hurt his wing, and at first Nortel thought it was broken. But the swelling went down and now he can move it, so we’re thinking it’s just a bad sprain. Lots of injuries for everyone. But at least they’re here.’

  Thymara just looked at him. ‘What else?’ Alise demanded.

  He took a breath. ‘Alum’s missing. And Warken. Alum’s dragon keeps trumpeting for him, so we wonder if he is still alive somewhere. We’ve tried talking to Arbuc, but no one can make sense of him. It’s like trying to talk to a scared little child. He just keeps trumpeting and repeating that he wants Alum to come and take him out of the water. Warken’s red is silent; Baliper won’t speak to any of us. Veras, Jerd’s dragon, is also missing. Jerd hasn’t stopped weeping since she got here. She says she can’t “feel” her dragon, so she thinks she drowned.’

  ‘We saw Veras! She was alive and swimming strongly, but the current was carrying her downriver.’

  ‘Well, I still think that’s good news. You should tell her.’

  Something in his voice alerted Thymara that worse news was to come. She held her breath, waiting for it, but Alise asked immediately, ‘What about Tarman and Captain Leftrin?’

  ‘Some of us saw the ship, right after the wave first hit. The water went over the top of him, but we saw him bob up again, with white water streaming out of his scuppers. So he was upright and afloat the last time we saw him, but that’s all we know. We haven’t seen anyone from the boat’s crews or any of the hunters, so we hope they were aboard and rode it out on Tarman.’

  ‘If they did, they’ll come to find us. Captain Leftrin will come for us.’ She spoke with such heartfelt confidence that Thymara almost felt sorry for her. If he didn’t come, she thought, Alise would be hard put to accept that she must rescue herself.

  She looked flatly at Tats. ‘And what else?’ she demanded.

  ‘The silver dragon isn’t here. And neither is Relpda, the little copper queen.’

  Thymara sighed. ‘I wondered if they would survive. Neither was very smart, and the copper was always sickly. Perhaps it was a mercy that they went so quickly.’ She looked at Tats, wondering if he would agree with her. But he didn’t seem to hear her words. ‘Who else?’ she asked flatly.

  A small stillness followed her question, as if the world paused to prepare itself to grieve. ‘Heeby. And Rapskal. They aren’t here and no one saw anything of either of them after the wave hit.’

  ‘But I left him with you!’ she protested, as if somehow that meant it were Tats’ fault. She saw him wince and knew he felt the same.

  ‘I know. One moment we were standing there arguing. The next, the water slapped us down. I never saw him again.’

  Thymara crouched down on the tree branch and waited for pain and tears to come. They didn’t. Instead a strange numbness flowed up from her belly. She had killed him. She had killed him by getting so angry at him that she’d stopped caring about him. ‘I was so angry at him,’ she confessed to Tats. ‘What he told me ruined my idea of him, and I thought I’d just have to stop knowing him, stop letting him be near me. And now he’s gone.’

  ‘Ruined your idea of him?’ Tats asked cautiously.

  ‘I just never thought he’d do a thing like that. I’d thought he was better than that,’ she said awkwardly.

  Too late she saw that Tats accepted that judgment upon himself as well. ‘Maybe none of us are quite what the others think we are,’ he observed shortly and stood. He walked back towards the trunk and she could not think of any words to call him back.

  Alise called after him, ‘No one can know that he and Heeby are dead. He might have made it to Tarman. Maybe Captain Leftrin will bring him back to us.’

  Tats glanced back at them. His voice was flat as he said, ‘I’m going to tell Jerd that you saw Veras. It might give her a little comfort. Greft has been trying to encourage her, but she hasn’t been listening to him.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ Alise encouraged him. ‘Tell her that when we saw her dragon, she was afloat and swimming strongly.’

  Thymara let him go. Let him go to comfort Jerd. It didn’t matter to her. She had let go of him when she had let go of Rapskal. She hadn’t really known either of them. It was much better to keep her heart to herself. She wondered if she were being stupid. Did she have to hold onto her hurt and anger? Could she just let it go and forgive him and have him back as her friend? For a moment, it seemed as if it were purely her decision; she could make what he had done an important matter or she could let it go as just something that had happened. Holding onto it was hurting both of them. Before she had known what he had done with Jerd, he’d been her friend. All that had changed was that now she knew.

  ‘But I can’t unknow it,’ she whispered to herself. ‘And knowing that he could do something like that does show me that he’s a different person from what I believed.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Alise asked her. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘No, just talking to myself.’ Thymara lifted her hands and covered her eyes. She was safe and her clothing was starting to dry out. She was hungry, but the hunger was beyond her tiredness and hurt. She could wait to deal with it. ‘I think I’m going to find a place to sleep for a bit.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alise sounded disappointed. ‘I was hoping we’d go and talk with the others. Find out what they saw and what happened to them.’

  ‘You go ahead. I don’t mind being alone.’

  ‘But—’ Alise began, and Thymara suddenly saw her problem. She’d probably never climbed a tree before, let alone clambered around through a network of trees. Alise needed her help, but didn’t want to ask. Thymara suddenly longed for simple sleep and time alone. Her head was starting to pound and she wished there were a private place where she could go to weep until she could sleep. Rapskal wandered through her thoughts with his insouciant grin and good humour. Gone. Gone from her twice now, in less than one night. Gone, most likely, for ever.

  Her chin quivered suddenly and she might have given way right in front of Alise, had Sylve not saved her. The girl came clambering up the trunk like a squirrel, with Harrikin close behind her. He climbed like a lizard, belly to the trunk, as Thymara did. Once they had gained the branch, he folded up his long lean body and perched with his back to the trunk. Sylve dusted her hands on her stained breeches and informed them, ‘We’ve got Sintara afloat and resting. Harrikin helped me and we got a couple of logs under her chest. We’ve jammed the logs against trees and the current should hold them there, but we roped them with vines just in case. She’s not comfortable, but she’s not going to drown. And the water has already begun to drop. We can tell from the watermark on the trees that it’s going down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The words seemed inadequate but she didn’t have anything better to offer her.

  ‘It was nothing,’ she replied. ‘Harrikin and I are actually getting good at it. I never expected to learn how to float a dragon.’ She smiled with her mouth, glanced at Thymara with red-rimmed eyes, and then away.

  ‘Mercor and Ranculos?’ Thymara asked. She would not mention Rapskal’s name. Sharing the pain didn’t help it.

  ‘Mercor is weary but otherwise fine. I’ve asked him if he ever recalled anything like this happening before. Once, he said, one of his ancestors was foolish enough to fly round a mountain that he knew was about to explode. It was a tall one, covered with glaciers and snow, and he wanted to see what would happen when the fire met the ice. When it did erupt, the ice and snow melted instantly and flowed down the mountain, taking stone and muck with it in a thick soup. He said it flowed swift and far, almost out of sight. He wonders if that is what happened, somewhere far away from us, and the wave of it only reached us now.’

  Thymara was silent, trying to imagine such a thing. She shook her head. What Sylve was suggesting was on a scale far beyond anything she could imagine. A whole mountain melting and flowing away, clear out of sight? Was such a thing possible?

  ‘And your dragon, Ranculos?’ she asked Harrikin.

  ‘Ranculos was clipped by a log in the first tumble of the wave. He’s bruised badly, but at least his skin isn’t broken so the water isn’t eating into him.’ Sylve answered for him. Harrikin nodded slowly to her words. He’d become very still, and in repose he reminded Thymara even more of a lizard, right down to his jewelled unblinking eyes.

  ‘You found a boat and rescued Tats?’

  ‘It was random luck. I’d left my dish in the boat. The fish was nearly cooked and I went back to get it. I climbed in and was sorting through my stuff when the wave hit. I held tight to the boat and eventually it came out on top of the water and upright. All I had to do was bail. But it snatched all my gear out. I don’t have a thing except what I’m wearing.’

  Slowly it came to Thymara that the same was true for her.

  She had not thought her spirits could sink lower, but they did.

  ‘Does anyone have anything left?’ she asked, thinking desolately of her hunting gear, her blanket, even her dry pair of socks. All gone.

  ‘We recovered three boats, but I don’t think anything was in any of them. Not even oars. We’ll have to make something that works. Greft has his fire pouch still, but it’s of small use right now. Where would we set a fire? I dread tonight when the mosquitoes come. We’re going to be miserable until the water goes down. And even then, well, my friends, we’ve hard times to face.’

  Alise spoke. ‘Captain Leftrin will come and find us. And once he does, and the water goes down, we’ll go on.’

  ‘Go on?’ Harrikin spoke softly, slowly, as if he could not believe his ears.

  The Bingtown woman looked round at her small circle of startled listeners and gave a tiny laugh. ‘Don’t you know your history? It’s what Traders do. We go on. Besides,’ and she shrugged, ‘there’s nothing else we can do.’

  Day the 19th of the Prayer 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, a report from the Cassarick Rain Wild Council as sent to the Trehaug Rain Wild Council, concerning the earthquake, black rain, and white flood, and the likely demise of the members of the Kelsingra expedition, the crew of the Tarman, and all dragons.

  Erek,

  We have never seen such a flash flood as we have just endured. Lives were lost in both excavation sites, the new docks that were just built at Cassarick are gone, and a score of trees that fronted the river were torn loose. It is only good fortune that so few houses were lost. Damage to the bridges and to the Trader Hall here is substantial. I doubt we with ever hear what has become of the dragons and their keepers. I only received your bird message about visiting the Rain Wilds a day ago. I hope you were not on the river. If you are well please send me a bird to say so as soon as you receive this.

  Detozi

  CHAPTER SIX

  Decision Point

  Water splashed against his face, startling him awake from his nightmare. He coughed and spat. ‘Stop it!’ he choked and tried to put a threat in his voice. ‘Get out of my room. I’m getting up. I won’t be late.’

  Despite his plea, water slopped against his face again. His stupid sister was going to get it now!

  He opened his eyes to a new nightmare. He dangled facedown from the jaws of a dragon. The dragon was swimming in a white river. The sky had the uncertain light of dawn. Sedric’s head was barely above the water. He could feel the dragon’s teeth pressed lightly against the skin of his back and chest. His arms and legs were outside the dragon’s mouth, dragging though the water. The water pushed against the swimming dragon, shoving them steadily downstream. And the dragon was tired. She swam with a dogged one-two, one-two stroke of her front legs. He turned his head and saw that only the dragon’s shoulders and head were still above water. The copper was sinking. And when her strength gave out and she went down, Sedric would go with her.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, his voice a croak.

  Big water. She gurgled her response but the words formed in his mind. She pressed an image at him, a crashing wave of white filled with rocks and logs and dead animals. Even now, the moving face of the river was littered with flotsam. She swam downstream beside a tangled mat of creepers and small bits of driftwood. A dead animal’s hoofed feet were partially visible in it. The river caught the tangle, spun it, and it dispersed.

  ‘What happened to everyone else?’ The dragon gave him no response. He was so close to the water’s surface that he had no perspective. Nothing but water everywhere. Could that be so? He turned his head slowly from side to side. No Tarman. No boat. No keepers, no other dragons. Just himself, the copper dragon, the wide white river and the forest in the distance.

  He tried to recall what had come before. He’d left the boat. He’d spoken to Thymara. He’d gone looking for the dragon. He’d intended to resolve his situation. Somehow. And there his recall of events ended. He shifted in the dragon’s mouth. That woke points of pain where the dragon’s teeth pressed against him. His dangling legs were cold and nearly numb. The skin of his face stung. He tried to move his arms and found he could, but even that small shift made the dragon’s head wobble. She caught herself and swam on, but now he was barely out of the water. The river threatened to start sloshing into her gullet.

  He looked to see how far away the shore was, but could not find any shore. To one side of them, he saw a line of trees sticking out of the water. When he turned his eyes the other way, he saw only more river. When had it become so wide? He blinked, trying to make his eyes focus. Day was growing stronger around them and light bounced off the white surface of the river. There was no shore under the trees; the river was in a flood stage.

  And the dragon was swimming downriver with the current.

  ‘Copper,’ he said, trying to get her attention. She paddled doggedly onward.

  He searched his mind and came up with her name. ‘Relpda. Swim towards the shore. Not down the river. Swim towards the trees. Over there.’ He started to lift an arm to point, but moving hurt and when he shifted, the dragon turned her head, nearly putting his face in the water. She kept paddling steadily downstream.