‘Mercor’s not trying to eat her.’ Sylve explained indignantly. ‘He’s trying to turn her over so we can check her belly for parasites. There’s a snake kind of creature—’

  ‘I know. I was just over watching them get them out of Sestican. Just about made me puke to see them back out, and Lecter was almost crying and blaming himself. I never seen him so broken up before.’

  ‘But they got them out?’

  ‘Yes indeed they did. Must have hurt, though. That big blue dragon was squeaking like a mouse as they came out. I don’t know what Captain Leftrin had mixed up, but they put it around the hole where the snake went in and pretty soon it started thrashing its tail, and then it started backing out. Lots of blood and goop come with it, and hoo, what a stink! And then when it finally dropped to the ground, Tats jumped on it and chopped it up with an axe. Made me glad I check my Heeby from top to toe every day. Right, Heeby?’

  The red dragon gave a snort in response, and shoved Rapskal again, sending the boy staggering. His account had made Alise feel a bit queasy, but Sylve had other things on her mind. ‘Rapskal, can you get Heeby to help Mercor? We’re trying to turn the copper dragon onto her back.’

  ‘Well, sure I can. All I got to do is ask her. Hey, Heeby! Heeby, look here, look at me. Heeby, listen. Listen, girl. Help Mercor turn the copper dragon onto her back. Understand? Help him turn her over? Can you do it? Can my big strong dragon do that for me? Sure she can. Come on, Heeby. Put your nose under here, right here, just like Mercor. That’s my girl. Now lift and push, Heeby, lift and push!’

  The little red dragon dug her feet in. As Alise watched, the muscles in her short thick neck bulged. She made a rumbling noise of great effort and suddenly Relpda began to move. She gave a squeal of pain, but both Mercor and Heeby ignored it. Pushing and grunting, they turned her onto her back. Her legs waved feebly in the air. ‘Hold her there, Heeby. That’s my girl. Hold her there!’ And in response to Rapskal’s cries, the small red dragon braced herself and stood with her head butted up against the copper. Her neck muscles bulged, but her golden eyes spun in pleasure at her keeper’s loud praises.

  ‘Look there!’ Mercor said, and Alise stared in horror. The copper dragon’s muddy belly was studded with snake tails. There were at least a dozen, the exposed stubs twitching and writhing because their victim had been moved. Sylve covered her mouth with both her hands and stepped back. She rocked her head from side to side and spoke breathlessly through her fingers.

  ‘She never let me groom her belly. I tried. I did try! She always pulled away from me and rubbed it in the mud. She was trying to get rid of them, wasn’t she, Mercor? She wouldn’t let me groom her belly because it hurt.’

  ‘Her mind was not clear enough for her to know that you could help her,’ Mercor said heavily. ‘No one blames you, Sylve. You did what you could for her.’

  ‘Is she dead?’ The call reached them, and all heads turned. Thymara and Tats were coming at a trot. Captain Leftrin was behind them. Sintara was following at a more dignified pace. Behind them, half a dozen other keepers and dragons were converging.

  ‘No! But she’s infested with them. I don’t know if we can save her.’ Sylve’s voice broke on the words.

  ‘Try,’ Mercor commanded her sternly, but then he leaned over the girl and gently blew his breath down on her. At most, it could have been a gentle breeze, but Sylve swayed in it. To Alise, the sudden change in the girl’s countenance was stunning. And frightening. Sylve went from a near-hysterical child to a calm woman. She drew herself up taller, glanced up at her dragon and smiled at him.

  ‘We will.’ She looked over at Alise and said, ‘First, we will use our reed brushes to clean away as much of the mud as we can. Heeby, you will have to hold her in this position, on her back. She will not like what we do, but I think we must clear the mud from her injuries before we can treat them.’

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ Alise concurred, and wondered where the poise had come from. Was she seeing Sylve as she was when her own doubts didn’t taunt her, or was this, somehow, an overlay of the dragon Mercor? Alise took up her reed scrubber and turned it to a fresh spot. She approached the dragon cautiously. The copper might be small and weak for a dragon, but a kick from any of her gently waving legs would send a human flying. And if she struggled and rolled over onto a keeper, serious injuries would result.

  Thymara halted and stared at Alise. For a moment, the Bingtown woman looked like a different person. She was scrubbing away at the belly of the copper dragon, heedless of dust and mud that cascaded onto her trousers and boots. Dust coated her face and her blouse was filthy to the elbows. Even her pale eyelashes were laden with dust. Yet her expression was one of determination, and almost pleasure in her task. When had she changed from being an elegant Bingtown lady, impeccably dressed and with manners to match? A grudging admiration stirred in Thymara.

  Heeby stood, her scarlet head lowered and braced against the copper dragon, pinning her in an ungainly belly-up posture. Rapskal stood at her shoulder, proudly patting his dragon and murmuring praise of her. Mercor hovered over the group, while Sylve appeared to be in charge of the operation. The girl also looked different, Thymara thought, though she could not quite put her finger on what it was.

  She took two steps closer and felt ill. Barely-exposed snake tails dotted the dragon’s belly. She swallowed hard. It had been awful to watch the writhing parasite exit from Sintara’s body. The snake had not been in her long, and most of its body had still been outside the dragon’s. Once Leftrin had daubed the strong-smelling tereben oil around the injury, the snake had gone limp, and then suddenly began to lash wildly. The dragon had trumpeted her distress. Thymara had stepped forward hastily and seized the lashing snake by the tail. ‘Hold on. I’m applying more oil!’ Leftrin had warned her.

  At the second application, the snake had become frantic. It had begun to writhe backwards out of the dragon, and as the length of bloody snake emerged, Thymara had forced herself to seize it and hold on lest it try to re-enter the dragon. It had slithered and slipped in her grip. Sintara had blasted news of her pain and the other dragons and keepers had begun to gather round her. As the final length of the snake had emerged, the creature had whipped its head about, splattering Thymara’s face with blood as it tried to attack the creature who gripped it. She had shrieked as the blood hit her and flung the animal to the ground. Tats had been ready and waiting with a hatchet. It hadn’t got far. She’d stood numbly, shaking with her dragon’s shared pain. She’d dragged her sleeve across her face, but it only smeared the thick blood more. It had smelled and tasted of dragon, and even now, after she’d washed it off, the clinging scent of it filled her nose and she could not be rid of the taste of it. Afterwards, Leftrin had swabbed the injury with rum and then sealed it over with a daub of tar lest the acid river water ulcerate it. The captain spoke as he worked. ‘After this, you’ll have to do nightly checks of your dragons. Those snakes got something in their mouths that numbs the flesh. You don’t even feel one burrowing in. I got a little one in my leg once, didn’t even know it was there until I got out of the water.’

  As Alise and Sylve worked, the copper dragon made small sounds of pain. Thymara squatted down beside her to look into her face, but the dragon’s eyes were closed. She wondered if Relpda were even conscious. She stood up again slowly. ‘Well, at least we know what’s wrong with her now. If we can get them out of her, clean her wounds, and seal them against the river water, maybe she’ll have a chance.’

  ‘We’ve cleaned away enough dirt. Let’s get them off her,’ Sylve decided.

  Thymara stood with the circle of watchers, staring in sick fascination. As Leftrin stepped forward with his pot and brush, she turned aside. Ever since Sintara’s blood had hit her face, it was all she could smell or taste. She had no desire to see more of it tonight. She saw Sintara waiting on the outskirts of the gathering, and pushed through the other onlookers to get to her dragon. ‘I don’t want to watch this,’ she told her in a low voice. ‘It was hard to see one snake removed from you, and you hadn’t carried it long. I can’t watch this.’

  Sintara turned her head to regard her keeper. Her copper eyes whirled, and suddenly they appeared molten to Thymara, pools of liquid copper whirling against the gleaming backdrop of her lapis lazuli scales. Dragon glamour, she tried to warn herself, but couldn’t care. She let herself be drawn into that gaze, let herself become important because of the dragon’s regard for her. A tiny cynical part of her snidely asked if a dragon’s regard truly made her important. She ignored it.

  ‘You should go hunting,’ Sintara suggested to her.

  She was reluctant to leave the dragon. Moving away from her glorious copper gaze would be like leaving the warmth of a cheery fire on a cold and stormy night. She clung to the dragon’s gaze, refusing to believe her dragon might wish her to leave.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Sintara said softly. ‘Won’t you go and find food for me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Thymara responded promptly, overcome by Sintara’s will.

  Sintara’s voice grew very soft, as if it were no more than a breath blowing past Thymara’s ear. ‘Greft and Jerd went into the forest not so long ago. Perhaps they know where the hunting is good. Perhaps you should follow them.’

  That stung. ‘I am a better hunter than Greft will ever be,’ she told her dragon. ‘I’ve no need to follow him.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I think you should,’ Sintara insisted, and suddenly it did not seem like a bad idea. A thought teased at the edge of her mind; if Greft had already made a kill, perhaps she could help herself to a share, just as he had with hers. She still had not paid him back for that trespass.

  ‘Go on,’ Sintara urged her, and she went.

  Each of the keepers had formed the habit of keeping their gear in their boats. Dealing with Rapskal’s untidiness was a daily trial for Thymara. When she thought about it, it seemed unfair that a random choice on the first day had doomed her to be his partner. The others regularly rotated partners, but Rapskal had no interest in such swaps. And she doubted she would find anyone willing to take him on, even if she could persuade him to try it. He was handsome, and adept on the river. And always optimistic. She tried to recall him speaking crossly, and could not. She smiled to herself. So he was strange. It was a strangeness that she could get used to. She pushed his gear bag to one side and rummaged in her own for her hunting items.

  Away from Sintara’s gaze, it was easier to think about what she was doing and why. She recognized that the dragon had exerted some sort of glamour over her. Yet even being aware of it did not disperse it entirely. She had nothing more pressing to do, and certainly they could use the meat; they could always use the meat. The copper would benefit from a meal after they’d cleared the snakes off her, and certainly Mercor could do with some meat. But as she slung her bag over her shoulder, she wondered if she were merely trying to find a more acceptable reason to let herself follow the dragon’s suggestion. She shrugged at the uselessness of wondering about it and set off for the forest eaves.

  The shores of the Rain Wild River were never the same and never different. Some days, they passed ranks of needled and lacy fronded evergreens. The next day those dark green ranks might give way gradually to endless columns of white-trunked trees with reaching pale green leaves, and all their branches festooned with dangling vines and creepers heavy with late blossoms and ripening fruit. Today there was a wide and reedy bank, with ranks of rushes topped with tufts of fluffy seedheads. The bank was only silt and sand, temporary land that might vanish in the next flood. Beyond it and only slightly elevated above it a forest of grey-barked giants with wide-spreading branches chilled the earth with their eternal shade. Vines as thick as her waist dropped down from those spreading branches, creating an undergrowth as restrictive as the bars of a cage.

  It was easy enough to follow Greft’s trail through the marsh grasses. Water was already welling up in some places to fill his boot tracks. The prints of Jerd’s bare feet were less visible. Thymara scarcely gave her mind to her tracking, thinking instead of the dragon. The more time and distance she acquired from Sintara, the clearer came her own thoughts. Why Sintara had sent her hunting was an easy question to answer; the dragon was always hungry. Thymara had intended to hunt today anyway; she did not mind her errand. More puzzling was why the dragon had suddenly decided to make the effort to charm her. She never had before. Did that mean that she now considered Thymara more important than she had previously?

  A thought light as wafting bulrush down floated into her mind. ‘Perhaps she could not use her glamour before. Perhaps she grows stronger in many ways, not just physically, as she challenges herself.’

  She had whispered the words aloud. Was the thought hers, or had she, briefly, touched minds with one of the other dragons? That question was as disturbing as the thought itself. Was Sintara acquiring more of the powers that legends associated with dragons? Were the other dragons? And if so, how would they use them? Would their keepers be blinded by glamours, to become little more than fawning slaves?

  ‘It doesn’t work that way. It’s more like a mother loves a wayward child.’ Again she spoke the words aloud. She stopped, just beneath the eaves of the forest, and shook her head wildly, making her black braids whip against her neck. The small charms and beads that adorned them snapped against her neck. ‘Stop it!’ she hissed at whoever was invading her thoughts. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Not a wise choice, but the choice is yours, human.

  And like a gauzy mantle lifting from her head and shoulders, the presence was gone. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, but whoever it had been was gone. Mercor? She wondered. ‘I should have asked that question first,’ she muttered to herself as she entered the thick shade of the forest. In the dimmer light, Greft’s trail was not as easy to follow, but he had still left plenty of sign. And she had not gone far before she no longer needed to bother with tracking him. She heard his voice, his words indistinct, and then another voice in reply to his. Jerd, she thought to herself. They must be hunting together. She went more slowly and quietly, and then came to a complete halt.

  Sintara had all but insisted she follow them. Why? She suddenly felt very awkward. How would it seem to them if she suddenly came up on them? What would Jerd think? Would Greft see it as her admitting he was a better hunter than she was? She moved up into a tree and began to traverse from branch to branch. She was curious to see if he’d made a kill yet and if so, what he’d taken down, but had no desire for them to know she was there. Their voices came more clearly, a scattering of words. Jerd said she ‘didn’t understand’ and there was anger in her voice. Greft’s voice was deeper and harder to follow. She heard him say, ‘Jess isn’t a bad man, even if he’ and then his words were too soft to follow. She edged closer, thanking Sa for the black claws she dug into the slippery bark. She changed trees again, moving from one thick branch to another, and was suddenly looking down on Jerd and Greft.

  They weren’t hunting. She doubted they had been hunting. It took a long moment for her mind to make sense of what her eyes saw. They were naked and lying next to one another on a blanket. Their discarded clothing was draped on nearby bushes. Greft’s scaling was blue and covered far more of his body than Thymara had ever suspected. He was turned away from her as he reclined. In the dim light of the forest, he looked like a large lizard trying to find a sunning spot. What little light there was touched the long line of his hip and thigh down to his knee.

  Jerd faced him. She lay on her belly, her chin propped on her elbows. Her bushy blonde hair was even more disorderly than usual. Greft’s hand was on her bare shoulder. Her body was long and slender, and the line of greenish scaling down her spine suddenly seemed beautiful to Thymara. It gleamed in the dim light, a rivulet of emerald shining down her back. Her legs were bent at the knee, and her heavily scaled calves and feet gently waved in the air as she replied to Greft. ‘How could you even suggest it? It is exactly the opposite of what we promised to do.’

  He shrugged one naked shoulder, making the light move in a sapphire line on his back. ‘I don’t see it that way. No keeper claimed that dragon. No one is bonded to her. She’s nearly dead. The other dragons can eat her when she dies and get some nourishment and a few memories. Dumb as that copper dragon is, chances are she doesn’t have many memories at all. But, if we can persuade the dragons to let us have her carcass, or even part of it, Jess could turn it into some solid wealth that would benefit all of us.’

  ‘But that’s not—’

  ‘Wait. Let me speak.’ He set a finger to her lips to quench her protest. She bridled, turning her head away from his touch, but he only chuckled. Thymara, watching them, could not decide what was more shocking, their nakedness or the topic of their conversation. They could only have been doing one thing. One forbidden thing. But Jerd seemed irritated, almost angry with him, and yet she so casually stayed next to him. Greft caught Jerd’s jaw in his fingers, turned her face back to him. She bared her teeth at him and he laughed outright.

  ‘You are such a child sometimes.’

  ‘You didn’t treat me like a child a little while ago!’

  ‘I know.’ His hand moved down the side of her neck and he slipped it under her body. He was touching her breast. Jerd’s bared teeth changed to a very peculiar smile and she stretched, moving herself against Greft’s hand. Shock and a strange thrill ran through Thymara. Her breath caught in her throat. Was that what it was like? She had thought of sex as something that belonged only to adults, and only to those fortunate enough to have normal bodies. Now as she watched Jerd rub herself against Greft’s touch, a peculiar envy awoke in her. Jerd had obviously just taken this for herself. Or perhaps Greft had begun it, tricking her or forcing her? No. The look she was giving him now was all too knowing. An unsettling warmth was infusing Thymara’s own body. She couldn’t look away.