Читать книгу The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection - Робин Хобб - Страница 38

Sintara shouldered her way past Veras and seized the swampdeer carcass the green had been eyeing. The smaller female hissed around the meat that she gripped and made a halfhearted swipe at her. Sintara ignored her. She would not waste time fighting while there was food to be had. The meat that was being dumped from the relay of barrows was the most she had seen in months. All the dragons had converged on it, forming a half-circle of large, hungry creatures. She didn’t intend to stop eating until every last bit of it was gone. Then she would nap in the sun and digest. Let the humans flutter and squawk that it was time to leave; she’d leave when she was ready and not before.

She was surrounded by the sounds of feeding dragons. Bones crunched, meat tore, and dragons grunted as they raced to consume the most food. The larger dragons had pushed into the central area and claimed the largest pieces. The smaller dragons, shouldered to one side, had to be contented with birds, fish, and even rabbits.

It was when she tossed her head back to gulp down the front quarter of the swampdeer that she noticed the cluster of humans around one of the dragons. The dragon, a malformed silver, was trying to eat. He was ignoring the humans who had seized his tail and drawn it out to its unimpressive length. Apparently he was so hungry that nothing could distract him from his meal. Sintara would have dismissed the sight for a very similar reason if she had not noticed that two of the humans fussing over him belonged to her.

She swallowed and then gave a low rumble of displeasure. She considered interfering, but decided to continue feeding while she thought about it.

To her surprise, she had begun to enjoy the humans’ attention. It was flattering to have attendants, even if they were merely humans. They were so ignorant. They did not know how to praise her properly and had not brought her any gifts, but the younger one was acquiring some grooming skills. Last night Sintara had slept deeply, not waking even once to claw blood-sucking parasites from her nostrils and ears. The girl had brought her a fish, too, a large fish and fresh. And the Bingtown woman was at least attempting to address her with proper respect and flattery. Dragons, she reflected, were not so foolish as to be swayed by flattery, but it was pleasant to listen to compliments and endearments, and they did indicate that the human was adopting the proper deference.

It had pleased her, too, to be the only dragon with two attendants hovering round her. Now it seemed that both of them had defected to the mindless silver dragon, a prospect that was very distasteful to her. It had been pleasant to feel the vibrations of jealousy between the two women as they vied for her attention. Thymara had taken great pleasure in bringing her that fish, a pleasure that was rooted not only in serving the dragon but in serving her better than Alise could. Sintara had been looking forward to nudging them into sharper competition. She noted their current cooperation with displeasure, and felt insulted that they now seemed as solicitous of the silver dragon as they had been of her. Alise’s useless male companion had joined them as well.

Kalo had taken advantage of her distraction to sink his teeth into a goat carcass that had been closer to her than to him. Sintara hissed her displeasure and seized the other end of it. It was no great prize. It was nearly rotten and tore in half before she had even tugged at it. Kalo swallowed the piece he had stolen and observed, ‘You should teach your tender more respect or you’ll lose her.’

It was humiliating that he had noticed the girl’s defection. Sintara had been on the point of going after her and the other woman. Now her pride prevented her from doing that. ‘I don’t need a keeper,’ she informed him.

‘Of course not. None of us do. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t allow anyone to take mine from me. He’s very satisfactory. You have noticed, of course, that the leader of the humans has chosen me to tend. He says it is because they have recognized me as the leader of the dragons.’

‘Have they? How nice for you. What a pity that none of the dragons have!’ Quicker than a lizard’s blink, she shot her head out, seized a young riverpig carcass that had been right in front of him and dragged it over to her spot. He bristled at her, the half-formed spines of his mane trying to rise. ‘Pitiful,’ she commented quietly, as if she hadn’t intended him to hear it. She clamped her jaws on the pig, crushed it to a pulp and swallowed it whole. When it was down, she added, ‘One of the females who tends me is quite knowledgeable about both dragons and Elderlings, and highly respected in her city. She chose to come with us out of admiration for me. And she knows that when the dragons of the past did acknowledge one as a leader, it was always a queen. Like me.’

‘A queen like you? So, even then, there were dragons with no wings?’

‘I have teeth.’ She opened her jaws wide, reminding him.

Across the circle from them, Mercor slowly lifted his head. Since he had been cleaned, his gold scaling flashed in the sunlight. On the sides of his neck, a subtle mottling marked where he might have carried false-eyes in his serpent days. He was not as large as either of them, yet when he lifted his head, he radiated command. ‘No fighting,’ he said calmly, as if he had the right to regulate them. ‘Not today. Not when we are so close to leaving this place and beginning our journey back to what we were. To what we are meant to be.’

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded of him. Secretly, she was glad of the distraction. She had no desire to fight, not when there was food to eat.

Mercor met her gaze. His eyes were solid, gleaming black, like obsidian set into his eye sockets. She could read nothing there. ‘I mean, today we begin our journey back to Kelsingra. Search your memory, and perhaps you will understand.’

‘Kelsingra,’ Kalo retorted sceptically. Sintara suspected that he, too, was relieved that Mercor had spoken and diverted them from a fight. But he could not admit that, and so he turned his disdain on the golden male.

‘Kelsingra,’ Mercor agreed, and bent his head and snuffed the ground, searching for any remaining scraps of food. The humans had brought more than they usually did, perhaps as a farewell gift or perhaps to be rid of any surplus they’d been holding in reserve. Even so, the dragons had devoured it quickly, and Sintara knew that she was not the only one who remained hungry. She wished she could remember what it felt like to be full; in this life, she’d never known the sensation.

‘Kelsingra,’ Veras suddenly echoed Mercor, and around the circle, other dragons lifted their heads.

‘Kelsingra!’ Fente suddenly trumpeted and actually leapt, her front two legs leaving the ground. Her wings opened and flapped spasmodically and uselessly. She snapped them back to her body as if shamed.

‘Kelsingra!’ Both orange dragons chorused a response, as if the word brought them joy.

Mercor lifted his head, looked around at all of them and then said ponderously, ‘It is time to leave this place. For too long we have been kept here, corralled as humans corral meat animals. We have slept in the place they have left for us, eaten what they fed us, and accepted that we were doomed to these shadow lives. Dragons do not live like this, and I for one will not die like this. If die I must, I will die as a dragon. Let us go.’ Then he turned and headed toward the river shallows. For a time, all the dragons just watched him go. Then, without warning, some of the dragons began to follow him.

Sintara found herself trailing after them.

The gash in the silver dragon’s tail looked as if it had been made by another dragon’s claw. It had never been a clean cut; it looked more like a tear. Thymara wondered if it had been intentional or merely an accident during the daily scramble for food. She also wondered how long ago it had happened. The injury was close to where his tail joined his body and was about as long as her forearm. A raised ridge of flesh along either side of the gaping tear indicated it had tried to close and heal, but had broken open again. It looked bad and smelled worse. Flies, some large and buzzing, others tiny and myriad, swarmed and settled on it.

Alise and Sedric, both her elders, were standing there like timid children, waiting for her to do something about it. The silver seemed to be paying no attention to them; it was at the far end of the crescent of dumped meat and feeding dragons, snatching at what it could reach and then retreating a half-step from the others to eat it. She wished she had something larger to feed him, something that would keep him standing still and his mouth occupied. She watched him pick up a large bird, toss it up, catch it and gulp it down. She had to act soon; when the food was gone, there would be nothing to distract him.

Sedric had fetched his kit of bandages and salves. It lay on the ground, open and ready. Thymara had brought other, more prosaic supplies: a bucket of clean water and a rag. She felt like a messenger who’d forgotten the words he’d been paid to say as they all waited for one of them to begin. She turned away from them and tried to think what she would do if she were here alone, as she had expected to be.

Well, no, she admitted to herself. She’d expected Tats to be here with her, or at least Sylve or Rapskal. She now felt a fool for volunteering to take on the hapless silver dragon. Skymaw was more than enough to deal with. She couldn’t possibly care for this dull-witted creature as well. She pushed that thought away and angrily crushed her self-doubt before the two Bingtowners. She set one hand lightly on the silver dragon’s dirty hide, well away from the wound on his tail. ‘Hello?’ she said quietly.

He twitched slightly at her touch, but made no reply. She refused to let herself glance at her companions. She didn’t need their approval or guidance. She made her hand more firm on his skin. He didn’t pull away. ‘Listen, dragon, I’m here to help take care of you. Soon we’ll all be going up the river to look for a better place for you to live. But before we start travelling, I want to look at the injury on your tail. It looks infected. I’d like to clean it and bandage it. It may be a bit painful, but I think it has to be done. Otherwise, the river water will eat at it. Will you let me do that?’

The dragon turned his head to look at her. Half of a dead animal hung from his jaws. She couldn’t determine what it had been, but it smelled dreadful and she didn’t think he should eat it. But before she could frame that warning, he tipped his head up, opened his jaws and swallowed it. She felt her gorge rise. Lots of animals ate carrion, she sternly reminded herself. She couldn’t let herself be upset by it.

The dragon looked at her again. His eyes were blue, a mingling of sky and periwinkle that swirled slowly as he stared at her. He made a questioning rumble at her, but she received no sense of words. She tried to find some spark of intelligence in his gaze, something more than bovine acceptance of her presence. ‘Silver dragon, will you let me help you with your injury?’ she asked him again.

He lowered her head, rubbed his muzzle against his front leg to clear a strand of intestine that dangled from the side of his mouth. He pawed at his nose, snorting, and with a sinking heart she noticed that his nostrils and ears were infested with tightly clinging parasites. Those would have to go, too. But first, the tail, she reminded herself sternly. He opened his mouth, revealing a long jaw full of glistening pointed teeth. He seemed so placid, even unaware, but if she hurt him and it angered him, those teeth could end her life.

‘I’m going to start now,’ she told the dragon and her companions. She forced herself to turn to the Bingtowners and add, ‘Be ready. He’s not really responding to anything I say. I don’t feel like he’s any more intelligent than an ordinary animal. So when I try to look at his tail, there’s no telling what he’ll do. He may try to attack me. Or all of us.’

Sedric looked properly daunted, but Alise actually bared her teeth in determination. ‘We must do something for him,’ she said.

Thymara dipped the rag into the water and wrung it out over the gash. Water trickled from the rag into the gash, and ran away in a dirty rivulet down the dragon’s tail. It carried off a few maggots and disturbed a cloud of insects, large and small, that rose, buzzed and tried to resettle immediately. It did little more than wash away surface dirt, but at least the dragon had not turned and snapped at her. She mustered her courage and gently pressed the rag to the injury. The dragon rippled his flesh around the area but did not growl. She wiped gently around it, taking off a layer of filth and insects and baring a raw stripe down the centre. She plunged the rag into the bucket, rinsed and wrung it out, and applied it more firmly. Crusty scab came away and there was a sudden trickle of stinking liquid from the wound.

The dragon gave a sudden snort and whipped his head around to see what they were doing to him. When he darted his head toward Thymara she thought she was going to die. She couldn’t find breath to shriek.

Instead the dragon nosed at the oozing injury. He pressed his nose flat to the swelling, forcing the pus from it. For a moment he worked at it, starting at the top of the gash and pushing his snout along it. The smell was terrible. Flies buzzed excitedly. She closed her nostrils as much as she could and lifted her hand, pressing the back of her wrist against her nose. ‘At least he’s trying to help us clean it,’ she said through clenched teeth.

Abruptly, the dragon lost interest and turned back to his feeding. Thymara seized the opportunity to wet the rag again and wipe the pus away from the injury. Three times she rinsed out the rag and cleansed it, until she feared the water in the bucket was as foul as the stuff she was trying to wipe away.

‘Here. Use this.’

She turned to find a grim-faced Sedric offering her a thinbladed knife. She stared at it; she’d been expecting him to hold out salve or bandaging. ‘For what?’ she demanded.

‘You need to cut away the proud flesh. Then we need to bind it closed. Perhaps even stitch it closed. Otherwise, it’s not going to heal well.’

‘Proud flesh?’

‘That swollen, tough looking stuff at the edges of the wound. You need to cut it away so that you can bandage it, fresh cut to fresh cut. So the flesh can heal together.’

‘Cut away the dragon’s flesh?’

‘You have to. Look at it. It’s all dried out and thick. It’s already dead, really. It can’t heal that way.’

She looked at it and swallowed sickly. He was right. From the palm of his hand, on a flat fold of clean cloth, he offered her the shining knife.

‘I don’t know how to do this,’ she admitted.

‘I doubt that any of us do. But we know it has to be done.’

She took the proffered knife and tried to grip it firmly. She set her free hand flat on the dragon’s tail. ‘Here I go,’ she warned them, and gingerly set the blade to the ridged flesh at the edge of the wound. The knife was very sharp. Almost without effort, it slid into the flesh. She watched her own hand move, carving away the stiffened skin at the edge of the injury. It came away like shrivelled rind from a dried-up fruit. It was caked with dirt and scales; the moving knife bared dark red flesh. It oozed blood in slow, bright droplets, but the dragon went on snorting through his food, as if he didn’t feel it.

‘That’s it,’ Sedric said in a low, excited voice. ‘That’s right. Cut that piece free and I’ll get it out of your way.’

She did as he bade her, scarcely noticing how he deftly caught it in a gloved hand. Alise had gone silent, either raptly watching or intently not watching. Thymara could not afford to look at her to find out which. She had cleared one edge of the wound of proud flesh. She took a breath, steeled herself again, and set the blade to the other side.

A trembling ran through the dragon. She froze, the razor-sharp blade set in the rubbery edge of his injury. He didn’t turn his head toward her. He hissed low. ‘Fight.’ The word barely reached her ears; it was spoken with a childish inflection, without force.

Dread edged the word. She wondered if she had imagined it.

‘Fight?’ Alise asked him gently. ‘Fight what?’

‘What?’ Sedric asked, startled.

‘Fight – together, fight. No. No.’

Thymara stood absolutely still. She had begun to think the silver had no intelligence beyond animal instinct. It was almost a shock to hear him speak.

‘No fight?’ Alise said as if she were talking to a baby.

‘Fight what?’ Sedric demanded. ‘Who’s fighting?’

It was an unwelcome distraction. Thymara caught her breath before she could lose her temper and said quietly, ‘She isn’t talking to you. The dragon mumbled something and it’s the first time we’ve been aware of him speaking. Alise is trying to talk to him.’ She took a breath, recalled her task, and moved the sharp knife steadily through the stiffened flesh at the edges of the wound.

‘Concentrate on what you’re doing,’ Sedric suggested, and she found herself grateful for his support.

‘What’s your name?’ Alise said quietly. ‘Lovely silver one, dragon of the stars’ and moon’s colour, what is your name?’ She put cajoling music into her voice. Thymara felt a subtle difference in the dragon. He didn’t speak but it felt as if he were listening.

‘What are you doing?’ Tats demanded behind Thymara. She jumped but didn’t let the twitch reach her hand.

‘What I said I would do. Taking care of the silver.’

‘With a knife?’

‘I’m cutting away the proud flesh before we bind it.’ She felt a small satisfaction in knowing the right term to use. Tats crouched beside her and surveyed her work intently.

‘Still a lot of pus there.’

She felt a moment of annoyance with him, as if he had criticized her, but then he offered, ‘Let’s clean it again. I’ll go get more water.’

‘Please,’ she said, and felt him leave. She carved carefully and again, as the ridge of dried flesh and clinging scales fell away, Sedric caught it and whisked it out of her way. As she gave the knife back to him, she realized her hands were trembling. ‘I don’t think we should do anything else until we’ve washed it a bit more,’ she suggested.

He was stowing things away in his case, working quickly and carefully, as if that were more important than tending the dragon. She caught a strong smell of vinegar and heard the sound of glass on glass. ‘Probably not,’ he agreed.

She had pushed Alise’s murmuring voice into the back of her awareness. Now she listened as the woman said, ‘But you’d like to go somewhere, right? Somewhere nice. Go where, little one? Go where?’

The dragon said something. It wasn’t a word, and suddenly Thymara realized that it had never been ‘words’ she had been hearing. Her mind had imposed that reference. The dragon didn’t ‘say’ anything to her, but he remembered something strongly. She recalled a flash of hot sunlight beating on her scaled back; the scent of dust and citrus flowers floated in the air on the distant music of drums and a softly droning pipe.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the sensory image faded, leaving her bereft. There was a place, a kindly place of warmth and food and companionship, a place whose name was lost in time.

‘Kelsingra.’

The silver had not spoken. The name came to her from at least two of the other dragons. But it was like a frame falling around a picture. It captured and contained the images the silver had been trying to convey. Kelsingra. That was the name of the place he longed to be. A shiver ran over him, and when it had passed, he felt different to her. Confirmed. Consoled, almost.

‘Kelsingra,’ Alise repeated in a low and soothing voice. ‘I know Kelsingra. I know its leaping fountains and spacious city squares. I know its stone steps and the wide doors of its buildings. The river banked with grassy meadows, and the well of silver water. The Elderlings with their flowing robes and golden eyes used to come to greet the dragons as they landed in the river.’

Alise’s words fed the silver dragon’s coalescing awareness. Without thinking about it, Thymara reached to put a hand on the creature’s back. For a fleeting moment, she sensed him, like brushing hands with a stranger in a market crowd. They did not speak with words, but shared a longing for a place.

‘But not here!’ he said plaintively, and Alise murmured, ‘No, dear, of course not here. Kelsingra. That is where you belong. That is where we have to take you.’

‘Kelsingra!’

‘Kelsingra!’

The shouts of agreement from other dragons took Thymara by surprise. She had been crouching by the silver’s tail. She rose to her feet now and became aware that the dragons had finished eating. Another one suddenly stood briefly on his hind legs, roared ‘Kelsingra!’ and came down with a thud.

She glanced at Sedric and realized that once more, he’d only heard half of a conversation. She interpreted hastily. ‘The dragons want to go to Kelsingra. The place that Alise has been talking about to the silver. It’s the name of a city, an Elderling city, that they all seem to recall.’

She sensed restlessness in the air and saw another of the dragons fling up his head, turn and abruptly moved toward the river’s edge. ‘They’ve finished eating. We’d best get this fellow’s tail bandaged, and gather our gear. I’m sure our barge will give us the signal we’re to leave soon. This morning they told us they wanted us to leave as early as possible.’

As if her words had sparked it, dragon after dragon was leaving the feeding grounds and striding toward the river. It was the first time she had seen the dragons move with such concerted purpose. She kept her hand on the silver, as if that could detain him. She saw Tats coming with a bucket of clean water. ‘Are they just going down to drink?’ she asked him, as if he would know the answer. She’d seen the dragons wallow and even drink the river water, something that would have meant eventual death for a human.

But he looked after the departing dragons with the same puzzlement she shared. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

But before another word could escape his mouth, the silver dragon lifted his head high. He stared after the others and Thymara felt a shimmer of excitement from him that infected her whole body. ‘Kelsingra!’ he trumpeted suddenly, a blast of sound and emotion that sent her reeling. Even Sedric recoiled from it, staggering back and lifting his hands to his ears. It was well that he had, for the dragon wheeled away from Thymara’s touch and suddenly lurched after his departing fellows. With no regard for the humans, he trampled through them, narrowly missing Tats as he leapt to one side and shouldering Alise as he passed. The Bingtown woman was knocked off her feet and landed heavily on the ground. Thymara expected her to cry out in pain. Instead, she caught her breath and shouted, ‘His tail! We didn’t bandage it up. Sedric, head him off! Don’t let him get into the river!’

‘Are you mad? I’m not getting in front of a hurrying dragon!’ Alise’s friend stood clutching his medicine case to his chest.

‘Are you all right?’ Thymara asked her, hastening to her side. Tats was already there, kneeling by the supine woman. Sedric hastily knelt and opened his case of supplies and Thymara half expected him to offer bandages, but he appeared to be checking the contents for damage. His face was anxious.

‘Sedric, please, go after him. Stop him. The river water will eat into his tail!’ Alise commanded him.

He shut the case with a snap and looked after the retreating dragons. ‘Alise, I don’t think anyone can stop that creature. Or any of them. Look at them go. They’re like a flock of birds on the wing.’

They were not the only ones shocked by the dragons’ abrupt departure. Thymara heard the voices of other keepers lifted in alarm and surprise. All up and down the mudflats, humans trotted after their large charges, shouting to them and to one another. On the barge, a man called a warning to another man on the shore and pointed at the dragons.

Alise sat up with a groan, rubbing her shoulder. ‘Are you hurt?’ Thymara asked her again.

‘I’m bruised, but no more than that, I don’t think. What got into him? What got into all of them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘They’re not stopping,’ Tats observed in awe. ‘Look at them.’

Thymara had thought that when they reached the river, they would halt there. For so long, their lives had been bordered by the forest at the back of the clearing and the river that flowed past it. But now the lead dragons waded out into the shallows and headed upstream. The smaller and less able ones didn’t hesitate, but followed them out into the water. Even the silver and the dirty copper dragon followed the herd out into the murky grey water.

‘Help me up!’ Alise demanded of Sedric. ‘We have to follow them.’

‘Do you think they’re leaving here, just like that? Now? With no thought, no preparations?’

‘Well, they haven’t much to pack,’ the Bingtown woman said, and laughed at her own feeble jest. She sat up, gasped and clutched at her shoulder. Then she caught her breath raggedly and cried out, ‘Sedric, stop gaping at me. Yes, they’re leaving. Couldn’t you feel it? “Kelsingra!” they shouted, and suddenly off they went. They’ll leave us behind if we don’t hurry.’

‘Now wouldn’t that be tragic,’ Sedric observed wryly, but he offered Alise his hand and helped her to her feet.

‘Do you think they know the way?’ Tats asked with interest. ‘I mean, I’ve heard the name of the city, but it’s like hearing about an imaginary land. People say this or that about it, but no one really knows anything about Kelsingra.’

‘I do,’ Alise asserted with quiet confidence. ‘Quite a bit, actually, though I won’t claim to know the exact location, other than that it’s upriver of here, possibly on a tributary of the Rain Wild River. But the dragons will know more than that. They have their ancestral memories to draw on. I suspect they’ll be our best guides.’

‘I’m not sure how much they recall,’ Tats said quietly. ‘My little green dragon seems ignorant of a lot of things.’

‘Such as?’ Alise pushed.

Tats shifted uncomfortably under her focus. ‘Oh, odd things. I was talking with her while I groomed her, but she seemed to have very little to say, so I was chatting about anything at all. I asked her if she remembered being a serpent, and she said no. Then I told her that it had been years since I’d seen the ocean, and she asked me what the ocean was. It was very strange. She knows she hatched from a serpent, but the river seems to be the only body of water she recalls.’ He halted, as if he dreaded admitting something and then added, ‘I don’t think she remembers anything except the life she has had here.’

‘That’s … disturbing,’ Alise agreed. She stared after the dragons, frowning.

Thymara shifted restlessly. ‘We need to follow them.’

The man from the barge, Captain Leftrin, came running across the mudflats toward them. ‘Alise!’ he shouted. ‘Sedric! Get aboard. We need to cast off and follow the dragons as soon as possible. The ship is ready to leave.’

‘I’ll be right there,’ Alise promised, but Sedric shook his head wearily. ‘What is the need to hurry? They’re going upriver. Seems to me that it would be hard for us to lose track of that many dragons on a riverbank.’

‘If the Rain Wild River were a single river, that might be true,’ Thymara said. ‘But it isn’t. There are tributaries that feed into it. Some are seasonal and shallow, but others are rivers in their own right. There’s no telling which one the dragons will follow.’

Captain Leftrin joined them just as she finished speaking. The riverman was panting from his jog across the mudflats. Thymara had met him only briefly, but she already liked him. He was a man who worked. It showed on his weathered face and capable hands, and even on his worn clothing. He looked at her directly when he spoke to her, and even when he had first met the dragon keepers, he hadn’t flinched at the sight of them. It was too soon for her to say she trusted him, but she doubted that he would deliberately deceive anyone. She valued that. He pulled a bright orange kerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweating face before he spoke. ‘The girl’s right. That’s been the whole difficulty with this expedition. “Upriver” from Cassarick can take a man in any of a dozen directions. Unfortunately, no more than three or four of them have been charted, and those charts are unreliable. Channels and waters that were navigable by flatboat one year are sanded-in the next.’

‘But I’ve seen charts of the Rain Wild River. I’ve seen them for sale in the bazaars of Chalced. They’re very expensive and not offered to all, but they exist.’

‘Have you?’ Leftrin grinned at him. ‘I imagine that the same booths will sell you charts to the treasure island of Igrot the Pirate. Or maps of the best harbours in the Spice Islands.’ He shook his head. ‘Cheats and fakes, I’m sorry to say. People know there’s a market for such things, so what they don’t have, they’re willing to create. But don’t feel bad. I’ve seen experienced mariners fooled by them.’

The Bingtown man looked at him. ‘Then how do we know where we are going?’

Captain Leftrin’s grin widened. ‘I’d say our best bet is to follow the dragons.’

Sedric’s hands were sweating. So far, it had all gone so well. He had inside his case two strips of dragon flesh and hide, with scales attached. One he had pushed into a bottle prepared with vinegar and stoppered it securely. The second piece he had placed in a small wooden box with coarse salt around it and latched the lid tightly. One or the other method, he trusted, would work. Both preservation vessels had been prepared weeks ago, before he had embarked on this journey. Once he had realized that Hest was serious, that he was going to force him to go to the Rain Wilds as Alise’s companion, he had been determined that the journey would provide him with a way to escape a life he had begun to find burdensome. Everyone knew that the desperate Duke of Chalced was willing to pay anyone’s asking price for the ingredients that might cure his maladies and extend his life. Sedric had decided he would be the one to furnish them.

And he had succeeded.

Now he was torn between triumph and dismay. He had exactly what he needed to change his fortune. As soon as he returned to Bingtown, he could contact Begasti Cored. The man had been eager to act as a go-between when Sedric had ventured the idea to him. Begasti would arrange his journey and his audience with the Duke of Chalced. It wasn’t just the riches that these scraps of flesh would bring him. It was the complete change in his life that he hungered to experience.

For the first time, he would have money, money that was his, earned solely by his own efforts. Not his father’s money, not his family’s money, not even the inflated wages that Hest paid him for his services. His own money, to spend as he desired. Exactly as he desired. Dreams that had slowly shaped themselves inside his heart for the past four years clamoured to be free. With this money, he could take Hest and they could leave Bingtown. They could go south, to Jamaillia, no, beyond Jamaillia, to lands he knew only as exotic names. There were places where two men could live as they wished to live, without questions, without condemnation or scandal. The money these scraps of dragon flesh would bring him would carry the two of them to those places, far from their families and their histories. It would buy them a future without secrets.

He scarcely dared to taste the thought that followed. It would buy him a future in which he and Hest were on an equal footing. For far too long he’d been completely dependent on Hest financially. The inequity had intruded more and more cruelly into their relationship. Hest was no longer merely assertive; he’d become cruelly dominant of late. If he had a fortune of his own, perhaps Hest would give him more respect.

He had what he needed; all that was left to do was to get his treasure safely back to Bingtown and make contact with Begasti. And the sooner the better. It was a long sea journey to Chalced, but he would not trust these goods to any hand save his own; the swifter he delivered his merchandise, the better. Vinegar and salt were excellent ways to preserve many sorts of vegetables and flesh, but they had never been tested on dragon meat. The stuff that the girl had cut from the dragon wasn’t exactly of the best quality, either. He planned, when he had a quiet, private moment, to clean both strips of maggots and tidy them up a bit. He’d pluck the scales free and store them separately from the flesh. But the important thing was to get them back to Bingtown as quickly as possible. An extended wander along a riverbank following a herd of dim-witted dragons did not feature in his plans.

‘Alise,’ he said, and her name came out more sharply than he intended. She turned away from Captain Leftrin, her brows raised quizzically. The others were watching them but he spoke as if they were alone. ‘You can’t intend to follow through on this wild adventure. Surely by now you’ve seen that nothing is to be gained by following the dragons? They’ve scarcely spoken to you, and what they did say wasn’t useful. Alise, it’s time to admit that you’ve learned all you can here. We can’t get on Captain Leftrin’s boat and leave here. Once we do, we’re committed to travel for weeks, perhaps months. Neither of us can do that. It’s time to admit we’ve done all we can with these creatures.’ He left his voice drop into gentleness. ‘You did what you set out to do. It’s not your fault that they aren’t what you hoped to find. I’m sorry, Alise. It’s time to go home.’

She stared at him. She wasn’t the only one. Leftrin was looking at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. The two Rain Wilds youngsters exchanged glances and Tats suddenly said, ‘I think Thymara and I had best be going after our dragons.’ It was as awkward an excuse to flee from the site of a quarrel as he had ever heard. But the girl was obviously grateful for it, because she nodded emphatically. The two of them immediately set off at a dogged trot.

Alise was silent for a moment longer, obviously waiting for them to be out of earshot. He could almost see her putting her objections into polite phrases. They would quarrel, yes, but politely and calmly, as civilized people did.

Leftrin had evidently never been taught such niceties. The colour had come up in his face. He took a deep gulp of air, struggled for control and then blurted, ‘How can you say such a thing to her? She can’t go back now. She’s the only one who knows about Kelsingra. Besides, she promised. She signed the contract! She can’t go back on her word.’

‘This doesn’t concern you,’ Sedric said flatly. His voice had risen in spite of himself. He was offended, both that Leftrin had dared to challenge him on this and that he had sided with Alise. It was going to be hard enough to herd her safely back to Bingtown; if she felt she had an ally in Leftrin it was only going to complicate his task.

‘It does,’ the captain said flatly. ‘She was there when I made my deal with the Council. Think I would have agreed on this trip if she hadn’t said she’d heard of the place and that it did exist? I only took the contract because I thought that she’d be along as a guide, not just to the possible location but to the dragons.’

Sedric glanced at Alise but she seemed content to let Leftrin speak for her. Sedric focused his words on her anyway. ‘You may have heard of the city, but that doesn’t mean you know the way. Come, Alise, be your calm, sensible self about this. You’re a scholar, not an adventurer. Even the dragon that can speak to you told you nothing; you said so yourself. And the silver and Tats’ dragon don’t seem promising sources of information, either. If you are honest, you have to admit that you’d gain more from spending a week in Trehaug, touring the underground city. There is a treasure trove of material there for you to study and translate. Why not return there with me and put your time to something that will not only increase our knowledge of Elderlings and dragons but will gain you the respect you deserve from those who know the most about these creatures?’ Even if they had to spend a few days in Trehaug to placate her, that would be better than setting off on a hare-brained journey to parts unknown. He knew that once they boarded that barge and departed upriver there would be no easy way for them to return, save on the barge itself. And that stubborn old goat of a captain was not likely to turn back until he’d given the task an honest try. ‘Alise, it’s not safe,’ he went on desperately. ‘How can I accompany you on this journey, how can I allow you to go? You’ve all admitted you don’t know where you are going, or how long it will take to get there, or even if the city still exists. This is a ridiculous journey.’ He firmed his resolve and ended his lecture with, ‘We aren’t going. That’s all there is to it.’

He had never spoken so firmly to her. For a long moment, she regarded him in silence. Her mouth worked and he feared she would cry. He didn’t want to make her weep, only to be sensible. She glanced over at Leftrin. The riverman had folded his arms across his chest; his face was set like stone. Even the stubble on his unshaven cheeks stood out stiffly. He looked, Sedric thought, like an indignant bulldog.

When her gaze came back to him, she was pink all around her freckles. Her voice was low, not shrill. She declared stubbornly, ‘You may do as you wish, Sedric. As you say, it’s a foolish quest. I won’t argue with you there, for I can’t. You’re right. It’s insane. But I’m going.’

He stood stunned as she turned away from him. She put her hand out as if groping blindly and suddenly Leftrin was there, offering her his arm. She set her hand on his grubby jacket sleeve and then he was leading her away, leaving Sedric staring after her. He clutched his precious case with the preserved bits of dragon in it and weighed his options. In his anger, he wanted to just do as she had suggested; leave her there and go home himself. Leave her to her own foolish decision and let her find the disaster she was so eagerly courting.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t go back to Trehaug, let alone Bingtown, without her. Certainly not back to Hest, not even if he had dragon flesh and scales worth a fortune preserved in his case. It would take time to change those things into money, time and discretion. And returning to Bingtown without Hest’s wife would be the most indiscreet thing he could ever do. He’d have no way to explain it. It would focus attention on him, attention he could not afford to attract to himself just now.

He realized abruptly that they had nearly reached the barge. Ropes were being untied, and the polemen stood ready to shove the barge back out into the river. He looked up and down the mudflats. The dragons were gone. At the river’s edge, the keepers were dragging small boats down to the water. In a very short time, he suspected this area would be deserted. ‘Alise!’ he shouted, but she didn’t even turn her head. The sound of the river and the endless wind carried his voice away. He cursed then and began to walk toward the barge as swiftly as he dared. ‘Alise, wait!’ he shouted as he saw her start up the ladder dangling over the barge’s stern. And then he began to run.