"Dragon Haven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

CHAPTER SEVEN Rescue

Night had been every bit as miserable as Thymara had feared it would be. The keepers had banded together to build a sort of platform, layering drift logs in alternating angles on top of each other. Leafy branches were torn down to provide cushioning over the bumpy logs. The resulting ‘raft’ had not been sturdy, but there had been room for them to huddle together and commiserate while the mosquitoes and gnats feasted on them. There was no flat place to sleep, so Thymara had balanced her body on one of the wider logs. She had considered taking to the trees for the night, but had finally decided to stay closer to the dragons and the other keepers. Every time she started to doze off, Alum’s dragon would trumpet mournfully and she’d rouse. Too many times that night, tears had followed. The small sounds she heard from the others on the raft told her that she was not alone in her fears. Towards morning, not even the sorrow and sounds, let alone the buzzing, bites and branch nubs could keep Thymara alert any longer. She had dozed down past the nightmares and grief to a deep sleep and had awakened chill and stiff and damp with morning dew. The flooding was subsiding slowly. The high water line on the nearby tree trunks was now shoulder-high on her. Next to her, Alise slept deeply, curled in a ball. Tats was just beyond her, breathing huskily. Jerd, she noted, slept tucked into the curve of Greft’s body. For a moment, she envied them the warmth they shared and then dismissed the thought. That wasn’t for her. Boxter and Nortel were perched on the edge of the platform, staring out at the flooded forest and talking softly. The dragons were hunched on their log perches. They looked uncomfortable and precarious, but they were sleeping heavily. The chill of the water and the deep shade of the trees had plunged them into deep lethargy. They probably wouldn’t stir until mid-morning, or later.

Thymara nudged Sylve and whispered, ‘I’m going to see if I can find us some food,’ and then picked her way through her sleeping comrades. Log by log, she clambered over the pack of floating debris to the closest major tree trunk. It had no branches within reach but her claws served her well as she scaled it. It was strange how good it felt to be back in the trees again. Safer. She might still be hungry, thirsty and insect-bitten, but the trees had always befriended and sheltered her.

She had not gone far when the forest rewarded her for her efforts. She found a trumpet vine, and drank the nectary water from the blossoms with only a small twinge of guilt. She had no way to carry the meagre mouthful that each flower offered her. She’d drink now, renew her own strength, and hope she’d find something she could transport back to her friends. There was not really enough liquid to quench her thirst, but at least her tongue no longer felt like leather. When she had emptied every flower, she climbed on.

The exertion required a different use of her arms and shoulders than she had become accustomed to, and soon the injury on her back began to leak fluid again. It did not hurt as much as it had, though she could feel the skin pull every time she reached for a new handhold. The tickle of liquid down her spine was distracting and annoying, but there was nothing she could do about it. Twice she saw birds that would have been easy prey for her if she’d had a bow, and once she hastily dropped down to a lower limb and changed trees when she came across a large constrictor snake who lifted his head and eyed her with interest. At that moment, she decided that her decision to sleep on the raft instead of in the trees had been a good one.

She was looking for a good horizontal branch to allow her to cross to another tree when she encountered Nortel. He was sitting on the branch that was her chosen path, and from the way he greeted her, she suspected he’d seen her and watched her progress down the trunk.

‘Find anything to eat?’ he asked her.

‘Not yet. I got some water from a trumpet vine, but I haven’t found any fruit or nuts yet.’

He nodded slowly, then asked her, ‘Are you alone?’

She shrugged and wondered why his question made her uncomfortable. ‘Yes. Everyone else was asleep.’

‘1 wasn’t.’

‘Well, you were talking to Boxter. And I like to hunt and forage alone. I always have.’ She took another step towards him, but he made no sign of moving to allow her to pass him on the branch. It was wide enough that he could easily have moved to one side. Instead, he remained perched where he was, looking up at her. She didn’t know Nortel well; she’d never realized his eyes were green. He was not as scaled as most of the other boys, and what he did have, around his eyes, was very fine. When he blinked, his lashes caught the light and sparked silver at her.

After a long moment, he said, ‘I’m sorry about Rapskal. I know you two were close.’

She looked away from him. She was trying not to think of Rapskal and Heeby and whether they had died quickly or struggled for a long time in the water. ‘I’ll miss him,’ she said. Her voice went thick and tight on the words. ‘But today is today, and I need to see what food I can find. May I get past you, please?’

‘Oh. Of course.’ Instead of just sliding to one side, he stood up. He was taller than she was. He turned sideways on the branch and motioned that she should edge past him. She hesitated. Was there a challenge in how he stood there or was she imagining it?

She decided she was being silly. She edged past him, sliding her feet and facing him as she did so. She was halfway past him when he shifted slightly. She dug her toenails into the bark of the branch and hissed in alarm. He immediately caught her by the arms and held her facing him. His grip on her arms was firm and she was closer to him than she wanted to be. ‘I wouldn’t let you fall,’ he promised her, his face solemn. His green eyes bored down into hers.

‘I wasn’t about to fall. Let go.’

He didn’t. They were frozen in a tableau, looking at one another. A struggle would almost certainly mean that one or both of them would fall. The smile on his face was warm, the look in his eyes inviting.

‘I’m getting angry. Let go now.’

The warmth faded from his eyes and he granted her request. But he slid his hand down her arm before he lifted it away. She hopped past him, resisting the urge to give him a slight shove as she did so.

‘I didn’t mean to make you angry,’ he said. ‘It’s just. . . well, Rapskal is gone. And I know you’re alone now. So am I.’

‘I’ve always been alone,’ she told him furiously and then strode off along the branch. She wasn’t fleeing she reminded herself, only leaving him behind. When she reached the next trunk, she went up it more quickly than a lizard and refused to look back to see if he was watching her climb. Instead, she concentrated on climbing higher, heading for the upper reaches of the canopy where more sunlight increased the chances of finding fruit.

Fortune favoured her. She found a bread leaf vine parasitizing a handprint tree. The fat yellow leaves didn’t offer much flavour, but they were filling and crisp with moisture as well. For a time, she perched and ate her fill, then tore several trailing strings of leaves from it. She wound the vines into a loose wreath and put them around her neck hanging down her back.

She started back down, and on the way saw a sour pear tree only a few trunks away. She crossed to it. The fruit was past its prime and slightly wrinkly, but she doubted her friends would be fussy. With no other way to carry it, she filled the front of her shirt and then went more slowly, trying to avoid crushing the food she carried. When she reached the tree by the river’s edge and climbed down to the flotsam raft, she was surprised to find that many of the keepers were still sleeping. Tats was awake; he and Greft were trying to kindle a small fire at the root end of one of the big snags. A thin tendril of smoke wound up into the morning air. As she approached, she saw Sylve and Harrikin crouched at the edge of the packed driftwood. She watched as Sylve reached out with a long stick and then dragged something closer. It wasn’t until she was near that she realized they were pulling dead fish from the river. Harrikin was cleaning them, sticking a claw in each belly, slitting it open and scooping out the guts before adding it to the row of fish beside him.

‘Where are the dragons?’ she called anxiously to them.

Sylve turned to her and gave her a weary smile. ‘There you are! I thought I’d dreamed you telling me you were going hunting, but then you were gone when I woke all the way. The acid run killed a lot of fish and other creatures. The dragons have moved upriver. They’ve discovered an eddy full of carrion and are eating their fill. I’m glad there’s something for them. They’re tired from treading water and so much swimming, but at least they won’t be hungry after this. Even Mercor was beginning to be bad-tempered, and I was afraid a couple of the bigger males were going to fight this morning.’ ‘Did Sintara go with them?’

‘They all went, each more jealous than the next, to be sure of getting a fair share. What did you bring?’

‘Bread leaf and sour pear. My shirt is full of sour pear. I couldn’t think of any other way to carry them.’

Sylve laughed. ‘We’ll be glad to have them, no matter how you got them here. Greft and Tats are trying to get enough of a fire going that we can cook the fish. If it doesn’t work, I suppose raw will have to do.’

‘Better than nothing, certainly’

Harrikin had been quiet through their conversation. He was never much of a talker. The first time she had seen him, he had reminded her of a lizard. He was long and slender, and much older than Sylve, but she seemed very comfortable with him. Thymara had not realized that he, too, had claws, until she watched him using them. He looked up from his task, caught her eyes on his hands, and nodded an acknowledgment to her.

A little silence fell over the group. Unanswered questions were answered by it. No one spoke of Rapskal, and in the distance, she heard Alum’s dragon give a long, anxious cry. Arbuc still called for his missing keeper. Warken’s red dragon Baliper held his mourning silence. Nothing had changed. The remaining keepers were still marooned on a raft of floating debris. Nothing had changed. Thymara wondered in passing what would become of them if their dragons abandoned them here. Would they? Did the dragons need them any longer? What if they decided to travel on without them?

She looked up to see Tats coming towards them and wondered if she looked as bad as he did. His skin was scalded red from the river water, and his hair stuck up in tufts. The water had attacked his clothing as well, mottling the already-worn shirt and trousers. He looked haggard, but still managed to put on a smile for her. ‘What are you wearing?’ he asked her.

‘Our breakfast. Bread leaf and sour pear. Looks like you have a fire going for the fish.’

He glanced back to the little blaze that Greft tended. Jerd had come from somewhere to join him. She leaned against him quietly as he broke dry bits of root from the end of the snag and fed it to the small fire he’d kindled in the main nest of roots. ‘It wasn’t easy to get it going. And the fear is that if we succeed too well, it may spread to the rest of the debris pack and send us fleeing again. We don’t have much security here, but at least we’re still afloat.’

‘And the water is going down. But if we must, we could take to the trees. Here. Hold your shirt out.’

Tats lifted the front of his shirt to form a sling, and Thymara reached down her own shirt front to extract the sour pears she had carried inside her shirt against her belly. The wrinkled fruit were no relation to true pears but she had heard that the flavour was similar. When she had emptied her shirt into his, she followed him back to Greft’s fire. She feared there would be awkwardness when she got there, comments or mockery, but Jerd only turned away from her while Greft said simply, ‘Thanks. Any chance of more?’

‘These are past the season, but I could probably find more on the tree. And where one bread leaf vine grows, there are usually others.’

‘That’s good to know. Until we know more of our situation, we’re going to have to manage whatever food we can acquire carefully.’

‘Well, there’s plenty of dead fish floating in the river. The current is pushing the floaters up against the debris pack.’ This was from Sylve. She and Harrikin carried a line of fish suspended by a stick shoved through their gills.

‘They won’t be good much more than a day or so,’ Harrikin observed quietly. ‘The acid in the water is already softening them. We probably shouldn’t try to eat the skin, only the meat.’

Thymara removed her garland of bread leaf vine and began to strip the leaves from it methodically. Tats had already divvied the fruit into piles. Now he began to deal the leaves out as well. With the fish, each keeper would have an adequate breakfast. There was no sense worrying about dinner just yet.

Greft seemed to have the same thought. ‘We should hold some food back for later,’ he suggested.

‘Or we can give each keeper a share and tell them, “that’s it for the day, ration yourself”,’ Tats countered.

‘Not everyone will have the self-discipline to be wise about it,’ Greft spoke the words but it didn’t sound like an argument. Thymara suspected they were continuing an earlier discussion.

‘I don’t think any one of us has the authority to ration the food,’ Tats said.

‘Not even if we’ve provided it?’ Greft pushed. ‘Thymara!’

She turned her head to Alise’s voice. The Bingtown woman teetered awkwardly along one of the logs. Thymara winced to look at her. Her face was pebbled with blisters and her red hair was a tangled mat that dangled half down her back. Always before, Alise had been so clean and well groomed. ‘Where did you go?’ she demanded when she was still most of a log away.

‘Out to look for food.’

‘By yourself? Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘Not usually. I almost always hunt or gather alone.’

‘But what about wild animals?’ Alise sounded genuinely concerned for her.

‘Up where I travel, I’m one of the larger creatures. As long as I watch out for the big snakes, tree cats and little poisonous things, I’m pretty safe.’ She thought briefly of Nortel. No. She didn’t intend to mention that incident at all.

‘There are other dangers besides wild animals,’ Greft observed darkly.

Thymara glanced at him in annoyance. ‘I’ve been moving through the trees all my life, Greft, and usually much higher in the canopy than I went today. I’m not going to fall.’

‘He’s not worried about you falling,’ Tats said in a quiet voice.

‘Then someone should say plainly what he is worried about,’ Thymara observed sourly. They seemed to be talking about her and deliberately making the words go past her without meaning.

Greft glanced at Alise and away. ‘Perhaps later,’ he said, and Thymara saw Alise bridle. His words and look had pointed her out as an outsider, someone not to be brought into keeper affairs. Whatever it was that was chafing him, Thymara already wanted to defy whatever older, male wisdom he intended to inflict on her. From the look on Jerd’s face, he had annoyed her as well. She shot Thymara a look that was full of venom, but Thymara could not master the coldness to be angry at her. Grief for her missing dragon had ravaged Jerd. Her tears had left scarlet tracks down her face. Impulsively, she addressed her directly.

‘I’m sorry about Veras. I hope she manages to rejoin us. There are already so few female dragons.’

‘Exactly,’ Greft said, as if that proved some point for him.

But Jerd looked at her, weighed her comment and decided she was sincere. ‘I can’t feel her. Not clearly. But it doesn’t feel like she’s gone, either. I’m afraid that she’s injured somewhere. Or just disoriented and unable to find her way back to us.’

‘It will be all right, Jerd,’ Greft said soothingly. ‘Don’t distress yourself. It’s the last thing you need right now.’

This time both Thymara and Jerd shot him furious looks.

‘I’m only thinking of you,’ he said defensively.

‘Well, I’m thinking and speaking about my dragon,’ Jerd replied.

‘Perhaps we’d best get the fish cooking before the fire burns too low,’ Sylve suggested, and the alacrity with which the fish were taken up and fixed on wooden skewers over the fire attested to how uncomfortable the near-quarrel was making everyone.

‘Have you asked the other dragons if they can feel her?’ Sylve asked her as they began to ferry the cooked fish and other foods from the fire to the main raft. Boxter had found shelf mushrooms and onion-moss to share, welcome additions to an otherwise bland meal.

Jerd shook her head mutely.

‘Well, my dear, you should!’ Alise smiled at her. ‘Sintara and Mercor would be the best ones to approach with this. I’ll ask Sintara for you, shall I?’

The words were said so innocently, with such a hopeful helpfulness. Thymara bit down on her anger. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t she?’

‘Well, because she is Sintara,’ Thymara replied, and Sylve laughed.

‘I know what you mean. Just when I think I understand Mercor and that he will do any simple favour I ask of him, he asserts he is a dragon and not my plaything. But I think he might help with this.’

Jerd struggled for a moment and then asked quietly, ‘Would you ask him, then? I didn’t think to ask the other dragons. It just seemed to me that I should know if she is alive or dead. I should be able to feel it, without help.’

‘Are you that close to Veras?’ Thymara asked and tried not to let envy creep into her voice.

‘I thought I was,’ Jerd said quietly. ‘I thought I was.’

Alise looked around the circle of dragon keepers. In her hands, she held two broad, thick leaves topped with a piece of partially-cooked fish. A mushroom and a tangle of shaggy greenery topped the fish. She balanced a fruit that Thymara had called a ‘sour pear’ on her leg. They’d given her the same share that any other keeper had received. She’d slept alongside them and now ate with them, but knew that despite her efforts, she was not one of them. Thymara did not make as much of their differences as the others did, but the girl still deferred to her in a way that kept her at a distance. She felt that Greft resented her, but if she’d had to say why, the only reason she could come up with was that she was not of the Rain Wilds. It made her feel desperately alone.

And being so useless did not make it any easier.

She envied how quickly the others seemed to have adapted and then reacted to their situation. They shifted their lives and responded to recover from the disaster so quickly that she felt both old and inflexible in comparison. And they spoke so little of their losses. Jerd wept, but she did not endlessly rant. The calm the keepers showed seemed almost unnatural. She wondered if it was the response of people who had grown up with near-disaster at every turn. Quakes were not a rarity to them, any more than they were to the people of Bingtown. But all knew that in the Rain Wilds, quakes were more dangerous. So many of the Rain Wilders worked underground, salvaging Elderling artefacts as they unearthed the buried halls and chambers of the ancient cities. Cave-ins and collapses were sometimes triggered by quakes; had the keepers been inured to loss from an early age?

She wished they had been less reticent. She wanted to howl at the moon, to shake and rant, to weep hopelessly and fall apart. She longed to talk about Tarman and Captain Leftrin, to ask if they thought the ship had survived, to ask if they expected him to come searching. As if talking about rescue could make it a reality! It would have been strangely comforting to discuss it all, over and over. Yet in the face of all these youngsters simply dealing with this disaster, how could she?

She picked the steaming fish apart with her fingers and ate it with bites of the mushroom and strands of the onion-moss. It did, indeed, have the flavour of onions. When she finished, she ate the ‘plate’ it had been served on. The bread leaf was untrue to its name; there was nothing of ‘bread’ about it. It was thick and starchy and crisp, but to her palate, unmistakably vegetable. When she finished it, she was still hungry. The sour pear at least helped her with her thirst. Despite its wrinkled skin, the fruit was juicy. She ate it right down to its core and only wished there was more.

Yet with every bite, her thoughts were elsewhere. Was Leftrin all right? Had Tarman weathered the wave? Poor Sedric would be frantic with worry about her. Were they looking for them right now? She wanted to believe that, wanted to believe it so desperately that she realized she hadn’t been exerting herself to better their situation. Captain Leftrin and the Tarman would come to rescue them. Ever since Sintara had plucked her out of the water, she’d believed that.

‘When the water goes down, do you think there will be solid land here?’ she asked Thymara.

Thymara swallowed her food and considered the question. ‘The water is going down, but we won’t know about land until it goes all the way down. Even if there is land, it will be mud for some time. Floods come up quickly in the Rain Wilds, and go away slowly, because the earth is already saturated with water. We won’t be able to walk on it, if that is what you are thinking. Not for any great distance.’

‘So. What are we going to do?’

‘For now? For now, those of us who can forage or hunt will. The others will do what they can to make things more comfortable here. And when the water goes down, well, then we’ll see what else is to be done.’

‘Will the dragons want to continue our journey?’

‘I don’t think they’ll want to stay here,’ Tats said. Alise realized he was not the only one listening in on their conversation. Most of the keepers within earshot were focused on his words. ‘There’s nothing for them here. They’ll want to move on, if they can. With us or without us.’

‘Can they survive without us?’ The question came from Boxter.

‘Not easily, not well. But they’ve mostly led the way, and mostly found the resting places each night. They’ve learned to hunt a bit. They’re stronger and tougher now than when we started. It wouldn’t be easy but none of this journey has been easy for them. I don’t say they’d choose to go on without us.’

Tats paused. Alise waited, but Thymara was the one to continue his thought. ‘But if we cannot go on with them, if we have no way to accompany them, then they’ll really have no choice. Food will run short here for them. They’ll have to leave us.’

‘Couldn’t they carry us?’ Alise asked. ‘Sintara rescued Thymara and me, and carried both of us to safety. It wasn’t easy for her to swim with us. But if they were wading through the shallows as they usually do . . .’

‘No, they wouldn’t,’ Greft decided.

‘It would compromise their dignity too much,’ Thymara said quietly. ‘Sintara saved us. But to her, that is different from acting as a beast of burden and carrying us along.’

‘Mercor might carry me,’ Sylve injected. ‘But he has a different nature from the others. He is kinder to me than most of the dragons are to their keepers. Sometimes I feel like he is the eldest of them, even though I know he came out of his case on the same day.’

‘Perhaps because he remembers more,’ Alise dared to suggest. ‘He seems very wise to me.’

‘Perhaps,’ Sylve agreed, and for the first time shared a shy smile.

‘If the dragons go on without us, what becomes of us?’ Nortel asked suddenly. He had moved closer to her. He seemed focused on the discussion, but his proximity still made her uncomfortable.

‘We survive as best we can,’ Tats said. ‘Right here. Or in whatever place we can find.’

‘It would not be so different from how Trehaug was founded,’ Greft pointed out. ‘The original population of the Rain Wilds were forcibly marooned here by the ships that were supposed to help them find a good spot to start a colony. Of course, there were more of them, but still, it’s similar.’

‘Wouldn’t you try to return to Trehaug?’ Alise asked. ‘You have three boats.’ To her, it seemed the obvious course of action, if the dragons abandoned them. It would be an arduous trek, either slogging through mud and swamp or travelling though the trees, but at least safety beckoned at the end.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Greft said quietly. ‘Not even if we had enough boats to ferry us all and paddles to steer them.’

‘Nor I,’ Jerd echoed him. After a moment, with a small catch in her throat, she added, ‘I couldn’t.’

Alise watched as Greft took her hand. Jerd turned her head away from him and looked out across the water. Alise noticed unwillingly that some of the keepers openly spied on the two while others looked away. Plainly they were a couple and it was equally plain that this bothered some of the keepers. Thymara watched them, her eyes hooded and her thoughts private.

‘That’s a decision that’s a long ways from now,’ Tats declared. ‘I’m more concerned about what we’re going to do today and tonight.’

‘I’m going foraging,’ Thymara said quietly. ‘It’s what I’m good at.’

‘I’ll go with you, to help carry,’ Tats declared. Across the circle, several of the young men glanced at him and then away. Nortel looked down, glowering. Boxter looked thoughtful. Greft opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it again. Then he said, ‘A good plan,’ but Alise was certain that was not what he had originally planned to say.

‘Is there any way that we can have a fire tonight?’ Sylve asked. ‘The smoke might keep off some of the insects, and the fire might be a beacon if anyone is trying to find us.’

‘I could help with that,’ Alise declared instantly. ‘We could construct a little raft, like the sleeping raft only smaller, and put the fire on that, so there’d be no chance of it spreading to where we’re sleeping. We could tether it with some of these creepers.’ She leaned over and picked up one of the bread leaf vines, now stripped of food. ‘We’d need more, of course.’

‘We’ll bring back more vines,’ Tats volunteered.

‘Harrikin and I can dive for mud. If we can find a way to bring it up. We plaster mud on the fire platform, it will last longer.’

‘But the water’s so acid!’ Alise objected, thinking of their eyes. Both of the youths were so scaled she didn’t think their skin would take much harm.

‘It’s not so bad.’ Lecter shrugged his spiny shoulders. ‘Acid level is going down all the time. Sometimes it’s like that after a quake. Big gush of acid water, then back to almost normal.’

Almost normal was still enough to scald Alise’s skin, but she nodded. ‘Build a platform, plaster it with mud, gather the driest wood we can find, and braid a good tether so it doesn’t get away from us. That’s a lot to get done before nightfall.’

‘It’s not like we have an alternative,’ Boxter observed.

‘Thymara. Do you want help with your gathering?’ Nortel threw the question out almost as a challenge.

‘If I need any, I have Tats,’ the girl replied.

‘I can climb better than him,’ Nortel asserted.

‘You only think so,’ Tats responded instantly. ‘I can give her any help she needs.’

Thymara glanced from Tats to Nortel and her face darkened. For a moment, her scales seemed to stand out more vividly. Then she said flatly, ‘The truth is, I don’t think I’ll need help from either of you. But Tats can come with me if he wishes. I’m leaving now, while the light is good.’

She stood as she spoke, flowing effortlessly to her feet, and strode off towards the forest without looking back. To Alise, she seemed almost to dance across the floating logs between her and the closest tree trunks. Once she reached one, she went up as quickly as a lizard. Tats followed her, and it seemed to Alise that he struggled hard to match her speed as his human hands found grips on the rough bark of the tree.

As Nortel rose, Greft spoke. ‘Nortel, we could use you here, to help put the fire raft together.’

Nortel froze. He said flatly, ‘I intend to go foraging for food.’

‘See that food is all you forage for. We are a small group, Nortel. We cannot quarrel among ourselves.’

‘Tell that to Tats,’ he said and then walked away. He chose a different tree trunk for his ascent, but Alise suddenly feared for Thymara, and wished she could go after them. Something had changed in the group and she wasn’t sure what it was. She glanced at Greft, but he did not meet her eyes. Instead he said, ‘Today is clear and tonight probably will be as well. But there is no telling what weather tomorrow may bring. We’re uncomfortable enough without being wet. Let’s see if we can make a shelter.’

Alise felt as if she had been plunged into the intimate affairs of an extended family she didn’t know well. There were currents here she hadn’t suspected and she abruptly wondered what her status was as an intruder. Thymara was the only one she felt she knew at all. She glanced at Sylve; the girl had at least smiled at her. As if she felt the older woman’s eyes, Sylve turned to her and said quietly, ‘Let’s go build our fire platform.’

‘Tell her to extend her head towards me!’ Jess barked at him. He was perched at the end of the log, holding his makeshift noose open. ‘I can’t get this around her neck if she doesn’t reach her head towards me.’

The log Sedric was standing on shifted slightly under him and he felt a moment of vertigo. He looked up at the noose and tried to make a firm decision. Abruptly, he gave his head a shake, snapping himself out of that peculiar drifting state the dragon could put him in. Just end it. She’d be dead, he’d have his mind to himself and a fortune in his pocket. He could have Hest. If he still wanted him after all this.

That last thought shocked him. Of course he wanted Hest. He’d always wanted Hest, hadn’t he? Wasn’t Hest and the love he felt for him what all this was about? He cleared his throat. The love he’d felt. . .

‘Relpda.’

She swung her swirling gaze to him.

Jess shook the noose out larger. Sedric could see his intent now. Noose her, snub the line off, and kill her. It wasn’t going to be pretty or easy. Before she died, she would know he had betrayed her. He’d feel the pain of that, her anger and reproach, right alongside the pain of her death. She’d saved his life. And his thanks to her was that he was going to profit from her death.

The price was too high. Hest wasn’t worth it. The shock of that realization jolted him; no time to dwell on it.

He reached towards the dragon, mind and heart. Relpda, get away from Jess. Don’t let him get near you. He wants to kill you! He dared not speak aloud to her.

Kill? Alarm. And confusion. She hadn’t understood. The exhausted dragon clung to the log and stared up at her executioner. Her eyes spun faster suddenly, but she made no move to get away. It was too much for her, he’d tried to put too much information in the thoughts he sent her. Keep it simple. And have some courage!

‘Relpda, get away! Flee! Don’t let him near you. Danger. Danger from him!’

Danger? Hunter bring food. Run away? Too tired.

He’d tipped his hand to the hunter and it still wasn’t going to be enough to save her. Jess’ teeth showed in a snarl as he turned towards Sedric. ‘You damn little fop! I was going to make it quick for her. Well, you’ve spoiled that and now you’ll both pay.’

The hunter was quick. He dropped the noose and shifted his grip to the fish spear. It was a small weapon; it couldn’t possibly hurt her. Please, Sa! ‘Relpda, get away! Go now!’

Sedric was already in motion, but he knew he’d never get there in time. He grabbed a stick floating in the water and flung it at Jess. Not even close. The hunter laughed aloud, then drew back the spear and plunged it into the dragon.

A blast of pain shot through Sedric. It stabbed him in the top of his shoulder, and his left arm suddenly went numb. He stumbled and went down, one of his legs slipping between the floating pieces of wood. His frantic snatch at a log kept him from going under completely. He bit his tongue and strangely the one pain drove the other away. The log bucked, but he got a leg over it and struggled up from the water, looking around wildly. Everything was happening too fast.

Relpda trumpeted shrilly. The fish spear stuck out of her, and brilliant scarlet blood was sheeting over her scaled shoulder. Her wings were half open and she flapped them, splashing feebly as she struggled to keep her sliding grip on the log. The hunter was in the water. One of her flailing wings must have hit him and knocked him in. Good. But he had already caught hold of a log and was starting to drag himself up. In another moment he’d be on the raft with them. Sedric knew he couldn’t fight him. The man was too big, too strong, too experienced. Weapon, weapon! The hatchet! The hatchet by the boat.

Sedric danced across the wildly rocking wood in a frantic race for the boat. If he had not been terrified, he would have crossed the debris raft on his hands and knees. But faced with imminent death, he leapt and dashed like a scalded cat, traversing logs that bobbed and tried to roll, leaping wildly from one to the next. Jess seemed instantly to divine Sedric’s intention. He hauled himself up, cursing and spitting and hurled himself in furious leaps across the packed driftwood. Twice the hunter went down between logs and hauled himself up again, and still he managed to stand suddenly between Sedric and the small boat, a knife held blade out and low in his dripping right hand. Water streamed from his hair and down the sides of his scaled face as he promised Sedric, ‘I’m going to cut you and string your guts across this driftwood pack and leave you to die here.’

I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me. I just want to live. I couldn’t let you kill her. His mind flipped through a hundred things to say and discarded them all as useless.

‘Flee! Flee!’ the copper trumpeted at him. It seemed an excellent idea and perfectly aligned with Sedric’s own impulse, but he dared not turn his back on the man. If he was going to die, it wasn’t going to be with a knife in his back. He heard an immense splash as Relpda lost her precarious perch on the log and went under. Cold, wet, dark, no air. For that instant, Sedric froze.

Jess dived at him, knife leading the way, and it was the man’s spring forward on the floating log that propelled Sedric’s sudden sideways lurch. The knife, hand and man went past him, not meeting the expected resistance. It was the impulse of a moment to put his hand on Jess’ back and shove as the hunter plunged past him. The hunter stepped off the log, onto the floating mat of driftwood. For a moment the tangled morass of weeds and wood held him up and then he dropped down through it with a furious shout. He flung his arms wide and splayed them out on the floating branches, twigs and moss clumps. Somehow he stayed above water, cursing at Sedric, unable to clamber out.

In two steps, Sedric was in the boat. He’d thought it would feel solid under him. Instead, as he jumped into it, it lurched and bucked. He fell, knees down, onto the thwarts, catching his ribs painfully. Safe. Safe in the boat. Where was the hatchet? And where was Relpda? ‘Dragon, where are you?’ he shouted. He knelt up, looking all around. To his horror, he could not feel her. And Jess had vanished, too. Was he drowning under the mat? It was hard to feel sorry for him.

Suddenly, like a vengeful water spirit, Jess shot up and out of the water right next to the small boat. He caught hold of the side. As he dragged himself up, the boat heeled over and Sedric cried out in terror that he’d be spilled into the stinging water again. Instead, the big wet man levered himself into the boat. Sedric immediately tried to abandon the craft, but Jess tackled him around the legs. He fell hard, slamming his ribs and belly against the edge of the boat and the driftwood log it was tied to. The hunter grabbed him by the back of his shirt and his hair, jerked him back into the vessel and hit him, hard, in the face.

Other than some boyish scuffles, Sedric had never been in a real fight. Sometimes Hest was rough with him, when he was in a mood to take their engagement in a harsher direction and enforce his dominance. In their early days together, Sedric had been aroused by such rough play. But in the last year or so, Hest had seemed to reserve it for times when Sedric had displeased him in some other area. There had been a few times when the thrill of feeling Hest’s aggression had changed into the dread that his lover would do real damage to him in the throes of his tigerish play. Worse, Hest seemed to relish waking that fear in Sedric. Once, Hest had throttled him nearly unconscious yet had not paused in his own pursuit of pleasure. It was only when he had rolled away from him that Sedric had been able to shift to where he could get a clear breath. With black spots dancing before his eyes, he’d gasped out, ‘Why?’

‘To see what it would be like, of course. Stop whining. You’re not hurt, you’ve just had your feelings ruffled.’

Hest had risen and left him there. And Sedric had accepted Hest’s judgment that he wasn’t truly hurt. The recollection flashed through his mind and with it, the resolution he’d buried shortly afterward. Never again. Fight back.

But Jess’s attack was beyond anything Hest had ever done to him. To be struck so hard in the face shocked him as much as stunned him. He hung in the hunter’s grip, trying to find the strength to lift his hands let alone make fists of them. Then the man laughed aloud and the sound filled Sedric with a panicky strength. He shot his fist forward as hard as he could into the centre of Jess’ body, just below his breastbone. Jess let out a sudden whuff of air and sat down hard in the boat.

For half a breath Sedric was on top of the hunter, raining blows on him, but he was dazed and could not put any strength behind them. Jess lunged up and wrapped his arms around Sedric. Then, as effortlessly as if Sedric were a child, he rolled with him, trapping him beneath his weight. Then the hunter’s heavy hands settled around his throat. Sedric’s own hands rose to catch at the man’s thick wrists. They were wet and cold and slickly scaled; he could not get a grip on them. The man forced him down and back across the seat in the middle of the boat, pushing him into the rancid bilge water as the seat bit into his back. He kicked wildly but his feet connected with nothing. He clawed at the man’s face but the hunter’s skin seemed impervious to pain or penetration.

Sedric gave up trying to attack Jess or even to defend himself.

All he wanted to do was escape. His flailing hands groped for the side of the boat. One hand gripped it and he tried to pull himself out from under and away from Jess. But the man’s hands were locked on his throat and his weight pressed him down.

Sedric had never felt so powerless.

Not since the last time Hest had held him down and laughingly told him, ‘I’ll decide how it’s going to be. You’ll like it. You always do.’

But he didn’t. Not always. And suddenly all the anger he’d ever felt at Hest for not caring if he enjoyed it or not, for laughing at him when he dominated him, rushed through him just as his desperately groping hand found the handle of the hatchet.

It was stuck firmly in the hard dry log that floated beside the boat, but his was the strength of desperate anger. He jerked at it spasmodically. Luck, not intent, decreed that as it suddenly bucked loose, the heavy blunt end of it connected with the back of Jess’ skull.

It startled the hunter more than stunned him. His grip slacked and through a red mist, Sedric saw Jess roll his head to one side as if to look for an unsuspected attacker. Fight him. Fight him. The dragon’s furious thoughts fed him strength. He swung the hatchet again, awkwardly, but with deliberate force and direction. It connected, this time with the hunter’s jaw, knocking it sideways with a loud crack. Jess shrieked. Sedric dragged a deep breath, then half of a second one into his lungs. Jess was making noises, but Sedric’s ears were ringing and Jess’ diction was ruined by the hatchet hitting him yet again. And suddenly Sedric heard himself croaking out, ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you.’

I’ll kill for you. That thought bounced back to him, a reptilian echo.

A last flailing strike hit the hunter between the eyes, and that did stun him. Sedric dropped the heavy hatchet into the bottom of the boat. He pushed hard at Jess and the man flopped off him with a groan, half over the low side of the boat. He was only unconscious for a moment. ‘You bas—!’ he croaked. He drew back his arm and all Sedric could see was a meaty fist headed towards him.

Then an immense splash rocked the boat. Relpda’s head and shoulders shot up out of the matted debris to tower momentarily over the boat. Hunter food! she announced, and bent her head. Sedric had never really seen the inside of a dragon’s maw before. She opened her jaws impossibly wide and he could see inside, see the immense swallowing muscles at the sides of her throat, and the row of sharp teeth that curved inward. Her mouth came down over the hunter’s head and shoulders like a poacher popping a sack over a rabbit. He had one brief glimpse of Jess’s eyes so wide that the whites showed all around them. Then Relpda closed her jaws.

There was a sound, a sound between a shearing of bone and a crushing of meat. Relpda’s head rose and she pointed her muzzle at the sky. Her head jerked twice as she swallowed.

Jess’s bloody hips and legs fell into the boat beside Sedric. He kicked at them in reflexive horror and the pelvis flopped over the side, followed by the legs. Relpda gave a squeal of protest and dived after them. The wave of her passage rocked the boat wildly. Blood and water mingled in the bottom of the boat, sloshing back and forth around the dropped hatchet.

Sedric leaned over the side of the boat, staring after them. ‘That didn’t happen,’ he slurred. He lifted the back of his hand to his mouth and then took it away. Bloody. He turned his head and looked at the hatchet in the boat’s bilge water. Blood streamed from it in tiny threads and mingled with the water. There was hair on it, too. Jess’s hair. ‘I killed him,’ he said aloud. The words came strangely to his ears.

Delicious.

The afternoon passed without incident. Thymara and Tats didn’t talk much. She didn’t have much to say, and keeping up with her left Tats short of wind. She made sure of that.

The way her feelings about him vacillated bothered her more than her actual emotions. When she was around the others it was easier to pretend that nothing had changed between them. Did that mean that perhaps nothing really had changed? Was she angry at him or not? And if she was, what was the reason? Sometimes, she could see that she had no real basis for her anger. There had been no mutual understanding between them. He had not broken any promise to her. Surely he was free to do as he pleased, just as she was. She could be dispassionate about it. He’d mated with Jerd. That was their business, not hers. And now that Jerd was with Greft, it had even less to do with her.

But then her hurt would break through, and she’d feel indignant and slighted all over again. The least he could have done was let her know sooner. If Rapskal had known of it, how private could it have been? Why had he let her be ignorant of it so long? It made her feel so stupid, so naive. My pride, she thought to herself. It’s my pride that’s broken, not my heart. I’m not in love with him. I don’t want an exclusive claim on him. I don’t want him to claim me. We are just friends, friends who have known each other for a long time. And he kept a secret from me and made me feel stupid. Just her pride. That was all.

It might be true, but it wasn’t what it felt like.

Spurred by emotion, she climbed higher and more swiftly through the trees than she usually would, making Tats struggle to keep up with her. She would find food and by the time he caught up with her, she’d have gathered most of it. Tats had fashioned his shirt into a crude carry-sack. As soon as he arrived, she packed whatever she had found into it, and moved on. Other than discussing what food she had found and what they might next look for, there had been little conversation. She could see that Tats was aware she wasn’t really talking to him, but he seemed content to leave the situation alone.

They returned to the floating morass that was their current sanctuary just as it became too dark to see under the trees. On the river, there was still some light from a distant sunset. The others had been successful, both in raising a small shelter on their raft, and in creating another platform for their floating fire. The yellow light it cast was cheering. As Alise had suggested, it was tethered to their sleeping raft in such a way that it could be quickly shoved away if the fire began to spread. For now, the welcome light and warmth it gave off cheered everyone. Boxter and Kase were tending it, stripping branches of leaves and tossing them on the fire to create a haze of smoke to drive insects away. Thymara was not certain that she preferred eye-watering smoke to stinging insects, but was too weary to argue with them about it.

The dragons had returned for the night. It was somewhat comforting to see their hulking silhouettes braced against the trees that barred them from entering the flooded forest. They were becoming more adept at capturing their own timbers and hooking their ribcages over them to float. She wondered if they had come back because they missed the humans, or only because they knew their keepers would help shore them up and keep them afloat for the night. Sylve and Harrikin seemed to have devised a technique for trapping several logs under a dragon’s chest. The dragons were not thrilled with their night’s lodgings, but it was better than treading water.

The acid-killed fish had proven both a boon and a liability to the dragons. They had eaten to satiation, but their bulging bellies were uncomfortable, and more so when braced against a log.

‘And they’re tired of being in the water. Really tired. Some are complaining that their claws are getting soft.’ Sylve sat next to Thymara when they ate that night. To her surprise there had been meat to cook as well as the fruit and vegetation that she and Tats had foraged. A disoriented riverpig, half drowned and stupid with weariness, had climbed right out on their raft. Lecter had clubbed it. It had not been a large animal, but it had been fat, and it tasted delicious to Thymara.

Greft walked behind them on his way to sitting down and commented, ‘There’s no use their complaining about soft claws. No one can do anything about it.’

Thymara rolled her eyes at Sylve and the girl bent her head over her plate to hide a smile. ‘I’m sure the dragons will take that thought to heart,’ Thymara muttered to her and they both laughed softly. She glanced up just in time to see Greft giving her a dark look. She returned his gaze with a flat stare and then went on with her eating. She didn’t respect him and she refused to quail before him.

The sleeping shelter was small and the floor was very uneven despite a layer of leafy branches. The positive side of that was that everyone was a bit warmer when packed so closely together, but it also meant that no one could shift positions without disturbing two others. It had been decided that they would keep a watch on the fire outside, adding wood to feed it and adding leaves for smoke. ‘Flames to signal anyone who might be trying to find us. Smoke to keep the insects away,’ Greft had needlessly informed them all.

The task was trickier than Thymara had thought it would be. There was a layer of matted leaves and mud between the fire and the mass of floating wood that made its platform. When it was Thymara’s turn to keep the watch, Sylve came to wake her and showed her how to feed the fire without letting it burn down deep into the lower part of its raft. Sylve left her sitting on the edge of the main raft with a plentiful supply of leafy branches and a stack of broken dry wood for the fire.

Thymara sighed as she settled into her task. Her back hurt, in a way that was different from her aching muscles. She’d pushed herself as well as Tats today; she had only herself to blame for her weariness. But she was very tired of the injury along her spine and the dull ache she endured at all hours.

Night had passed into its quietest hours. The evening birds had stopped their calls and swooping insect hunts and settled for the night. Even the buzzing, stinging insects seemed less prevalent. She watched the reflection of the firelight on the water. Occasionally, a curious fish would make a slow shadowy pass beneath the mirroring water, but for the most part, all was still and calm. The river lapped placidly against the logs as if it had not tried to kill all of them only a day and a half ago. The dragons looked like strange ships as they dozed, heads bent and half their bodies hanging under the water. She tried simply to enjoy the night without thinking, but her thoughts ranged from Rapskal to the silver dragon and back to Alum and Warken. Three of the keepers were missing and probably dead, and three dragons, all female. That was a blow. Veras had still not appeared; Mercor had told Sylve that he had not felt her die, but that she should not take that as an assurance that Veras was still alive. It was maddening news to Jerd, and she had seemed more weepy rather than less after hearing it.

‘I need to talk to you.’

Thymara started and then felt angry she had done so. Greft had ghosted up behind her; she hadn’t even felt the raft rock as he approached her. It hadn’t been an accident that she’d been unaware of him; he’d wanted to surprise her. She glanced up at him, keeping her face expressionless and asked, ‘Do you?’

‘Yes. For the good of us all, I need some answers from you. We all do.’ He hunkered down beside her, closer than she wanted him to be. ‘I’ll put it simply. Is it to be Tats?’

‘Is what to be Tats?’ The question irritated her and she let him hear it in her voice. If he wanted to be mysterious and officious, then she could be obtuse.

His scaled face, always a study in flat planes, hardened. His lips were so narrow, it was hard to tell if he clenched his jaw or not. She suspected so. He crouched down beside her and spoke in a low growl. ‘Look. No one understood why you chose Rapskal, but I told them all that it didn’t matter. You’d made your choice and we had to respect that. A few wanted to challenge him. I forbade it. You should appreciate that. I respected your first choice and kept the peace for you.

‘But Rapskal is gone now. And for all our sakes, the sooner the matter is settled, the better it is for all of us. So choose and make it clear.’

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say. But I think I prefer not to know. This is my watch and I’m doing my task. Go away.’ She spoke flatly, torn between anger and fear. Greft seemed somehow inevitable tonight, a force she must deal with, and a force she seemed unlikely to defeat. His words were either mysterious, or made a horrible sense. She didn’t want to know which.

But he wouldn’t spare her ignorance. ‘Don’t pretend,’ he said harshly. ‘You aren’t good at it. You heard me warn Nortel earlier today. If you’ve chosen Tats, well, then, you’ve chosen him. Make that choice plain to the others and there won’t be any problems. I’ll see to that. Tats isn’t what I would have picked for you, but even in a time and place of new rules, I respect some of our oldest traditions. I was largely raised by my mother, and she kept the old rules, the rules from when the Rain Wilds were first settled. Back then the Traders agreed that a woman could stand on an equal footing with her husband and make her own choices. That I am alive today is due to my mother’s choice. She kept me and she demanded that others respect her right to do so. And so I see the wisdom of letting women have a say in their lives, and I’m willing to respect it. And to demand that others respect it also.’

‘And who made you the king?’ she demanded. She was afraid now. Had she been blind to this, as well? Did the others accept him as leader, and beyond leader, as someone to set the rules and dictate their lives to them?

‘I put myself in charge when it became plain to me that no one else was equal to the task. Someone has to make the decisions, Thymara. We can’t all blithely go our own ways, letting things fall out as they may. Not if we hope to survive.’ He annoyed her by picking up wood and putting it on her fire. It caught almost immediately. She retaliated by poking it off the fire into the river, where it hissed and then bobbed next to the fire raft. He got her message.

‘Fine. You can defy me. Well, you can try. But life and fate are what you can’t defy. Fate has given us a bad balance here. Even with three males out of the picture, the ratio of keepers is still badly skewed. Do you want men to fight over you? Do you want to see our fellows injure one another, create lifelong vendettas with one another, so that you can feel valuable?’ He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes dark and unreadable in the night. ‘Or are you waiting to be raped? Does that sort of thing excite you?’

‘I don’t want that! That’s despicable!’

‘Then you need to choose who you will accept as a partner. Now. Before all the males start competing for you. We are a small company. We can’t afford to have boys hurting each other over you. Nor can we allow anyone to force you. Where that would lead, I can imagine only too well. Choose a mate and have it be over.’

‘Jerd didn’t choose. She mated where she wanted.’ She flung it at him as the only weapon she could find. ‘Or didn’t you know that?’

‘I know that all too well!’ he snarled back. ‘Why do you think I had to step in and take charge of her? She was being foolish, setting the men against each other. A black eye here, a bruised face there. It was starting to escalate. So I took her and made her mine, to keep the others from quarrelling. She wasn’t my first choice, if you want to hear me say that. I don’t think she’s as intelligent as you are. Nor as competent to survive. I let you know of my interest from the very beginning, but you preferred Rapskal the no-wit to me. I forced myself to accept that decision, even though I thought it was a poor one. Well, he’s gone now. And I’m with Jerd, for better or worse, at least until the child is born. Because that is the only way I could force the others to stop striving to win her regard. I can’t very well claim you as well. So before the rivalry and competition for your attention become violent, you’d best make a choice and stick to it.’

Thymara’s head whirled. A child? Jerd was pregnant? Was there a worst time and place to be pregnant? What had she been thinking? And before she drew another breath, she wondered angrily what any of the males had been thinking. Had any of them considered that they might be fathering a child? Or, like Rapskal and Tats, had it simply been a thing she was allowing them to do, and because they could, they did? Anger washed through Thymara.

‘Who is the father of Jerd’s child?’

‘It doesn’t matter really, does it? I’ll claim it, and that will be that.’

‘I think you go about claiming too many things already. You may have appointed yourself king or leader, Greft, but I have not. I’ll tell you bluntly, I don’t accept your authority over me. And I am certainly not going to “choose” one of the “males” simply to stop the others from quarrelling. If they are stupid enough to fight one another over something that is not theirs to claim, then let them.’

She nearly stood up and walked away. But her watch was not over and the fire was her responsibility. She looked at him flatly. ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

He shook his head. ‘You may wish it to be that simple, but it isn’t. Wake up, Thymara. If you don’t choose a protector and if I don’t enforce your choice of one, who is going to protect you? We are alone out here, now more than ever. There are four females and seven males. Jerd is with me. Sylve has chosen Harrikin. If you think—’

‘Four females? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you including Alise in your crazy plans?’

‘She’s here and she’s female, so she’s included. That choice isn’t mine; it’s simply the reality of what is. I’ll let her adjust for a time before I speak with her about it. The reality is this, Thymara. We are all marooned here together. Just as the original Rain Wild settlers did, we will have to learn to make our homes here. This is where our children will be born and grow up. We, right now, this little huddle of sleeping people, are the seeds from which a new settlement will grow.’

‘You’re insane.’

‘I am not. The difference between us is that you are very young, and you think that “the rules” mean something when there is no law and punishment to back them up. They don’t.

If you don’t choose someone and make that choice plain, then someone will choose you. Or several someones. And you’ll either end up going to whoever battles his way to the right to claim you or being used by several men. I’d sooner not see the outcome of that.’ ‘I choose no one.’

He stood slowly, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think that’s an option for you, Thymara.’ He turned away from her and then turned back. He spoke disdainfully. ‘Perhaps Tats is the best match for you. You can probably make him wait and lead him about by the nose until it suits your fancy to come to his bed. But he isn’t what I would choose for you and I’ll tell you why, plainly. He’s too tall; if he gives you a child, it will be too large for you to birth easily. I know you’ve said you won’t listen to my advice, but I suggest that you look at Nortel. He is one of us in ways that Tats can never be, and he’s more compatible in size. You don’t have to be with him forever. It’s possible that eventually you’ll take a different mate, or possibly several in your lifetime.’

He took a step away then halted and looked back at her again. For a moment, his gaze seemed almost sympathetic. ‘Don’t think this is something I’m imposing on you. I simply happen to see people and situations for what they are. While the rest of you were singing songs and telling stories about the fire, I was talking with Jess. There was a man with book education and ideas. I’m sorry he’s gone. He opened my eyes to a lot of things, including how the greater world works. I know you think that I’m overbearing, Thymara. The truth is, I want us all to survive. I can’t force you to do this. I can only point out to you that, right now, you have the opportunity to make a choice. Wait too long, even a few days more, and that choice may be taken from you. Once men have fought over you and one has claimed you, it will be too late for anyone to assert you have the right to choose your own mate. Then you’ll have to live with what you have.’

‘You are monstrous!’ she cried in a low voice.

‘Life is monstrous,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘I was trying to make it less so for you. To make you aware that you should choose while you still can.’

He moved quietly and gracefully across the shifting logs. She watched him re-enter the shelter. All peace had gone out of her night. Did Jerd know the sorts of things he said about her? He’d preferred her. That thought sent a shiver down her spine, and not of the pleasant kind. She recalled now that she had initially found him attractive. It had been flattering to have an older man pay attention to her. But even then, she recalled, he had been talking of ‘changing the rules’. Somehow his claim of honouring the Rain “Wild traditions that women could determine their own futures rang false to her.

‘I won’t be pushed,’ she said aloud to the night. ‘If they fight one another, that’s their problem, not mine. If any one of them thinks that somehow they can claim me that way, he’s going to find out he’s wrong.’

She had not been aware of Sintara on the edge of her thoughts until the dragon responded sleepily, Now you are thinking like a queen. There may be hope for you yet.