Rapskal's face brightened at her words. It took so little to make him happy. Her words didn't have to be kind, even, just not cruel. She tried not to wonder what his early life had been like that mere neutrality seemed like friendship to him. She began folding her blankets up with a small sigh. Of course, even neutral comments attracted Rapskal. Talking to him directly had probably earned her a full day of his close and chattering company.

'I've been worrying about how we're going to feed our dragons. I think the dragons can find some food for themselves. Dead stuff should be easy for them, and maybe big fish, too. Or big dead fish, that might be easiest of all for them. My Heeby likes fish, and she doesn't much care if she gets it alive or dead.'

'Heeby. Is that her real dragon name?' Tats had suddenly appeared behind Rapskal. He had his pack already loaded and on his back. He'd shaved, too. So he'd been awake for a while. He didn't shave often, only about once a week. Thymara had seen him do it once since they'd left Trehaug. He didn't seem very confident of his technique; he crouched with a small mirror balanced on his knee and scraped carefully with a folding razor. It had surprised her to see him shaving; she had realized then that she still thought of him as more boy than man. She glanced over at Rapskal. She supposed that she thought of all of them as boys still, with the possible exception of Greft. Rapskal, she realized, was probably close to her own age. Not a boy at all, really. Until he spoke.

'No. I don't think Heeby had a name before I got here. But she likes me and she likes the name I gave her, so I think it's going to be all right.' Rapskal suddenly halted where he stood. Then he smiled indulgently. 'Rats! I thought about her too loud and waked her up. I'd better eat fast and get over there. She's hungry. And I got to tell her again that today is the day we're going up the river. She forgets stuff pretty easy.'

He crumpled his blanket up and stuffed it into his pack, then looked around the area where he'd slept. He snatched up his extra shirt, pushed it into the top of his pack, and then said, 'Time to eat,' and headed off to the main campfire. Tats and Thymara watched him go.

'I think Rapskal and Heeby are pretty well matched,' Tats observed with a smile. He stooped down and picked up a stray sock Rapskal had dropped. 'I wish he weren't so careless,' he added more soberly.

'Give it to me. I'll make sure he gets it.'     .

'No, I've got it,' Tats replied easily. 'I'm headed that way anyway. You're right. We'd better enjoy our last easy meal.'

Thymara put her neatly-folded blanket into her pack and did a quick check of the campsite. No. She hadn't forgotten anything. All the others were beginning to stir. Greft, she noticed, was first in line by the porridge pot. She'd watched how he ate; he'd be fast, and get a second serving before some of the others had even had a first one. His bad manners annoyed her even if she wondered if she were a fool for not copying him. A couple of the boys had started to do so, over the last day or so. Kase and Boxter imitated him in most things, she'd noted. It made her uneasy to see them trail after him now, food bowls brimming. When Greft sat down to eat, they squatted to either side of him. She was surprised to see that Nortel had a black eye and a bruised face. 'What happened to him?' she asked.

'Got in a scuffle with one of the other lads,' Tats said briefly. 'What's going to become of the unclaimed dragons?' Tats' question distracted her from staring at Nortel.

'What?'

'There are two dragons that don't have keepers. You must have noticed.'

Food bowls in hand, they fell into line behind Nortel and Sylve. The girl immediately turned to join the conversation. 'The silver one and the dirty one,' she filled in.

'I think if he were cleaned up a bit, he'd be copper,' Thymara mused. She'd noticed them. She'd almost chosen one of them when it looked like Skymaw was going to refuse her. 'They're both in bad condition,' she added, and then forced herself to voice what she knew they were all thinking. 'Without keepers to help them along, they won't last long on this journey. I'm not even sure they'll follow us when we leave. Neither one looks very intelligent.'

'You're right about that. I saw the silver snuggling up to the barge last night, as if it were another dragon. It's not there this morning, so maybe it figured it out. Still. Not very intelligent. But I doubt that the Cassarick Council will allow us to leave any dragons behind,' Tats said. 'If we did, I suspect they'd both be dead within a week. Somehow I doubt they'd continue feeding them once we were gone.'

'That's mean,' said Sylve. 'They've been stingy and cruel to these dragons for a long time. My poor Mercor says he can't remember a time when dragons were so badly treated by humans or Elderlings.'

Nortel nodded wordlessly. The man dishing the porridge glopped a scoop into his bowl. Nortel held his bowl steadily there until the man grudgingly added a bit more. Sylve stepped up to take her place, holding her bowl over the cauldron of porridge. It bobbed as it received its load.

'Well,' Tats said reluctantly, 'If we just let those two tag along after us and don't do anything for them, we'll be letting them die just as surely as if we left them here to be starved.'

'They aren't fit to survive,' Alum observed. He was in line behind Tats. 'My Arbuc may not be bright, but he's fast and physically healthy. That's why I chose him. I thought he had the best chance of surviving the journey.'

'The midwife said I wasn't fit to survive,' Thymara said quietly as her bowl was filled with porridge. She trailed after Sylve to a pile of hard bread rolls set out on a clean towel. Each girl chose one and then moved on.

'We live in a hard land. A hard land requires hard rules,' Alum said, but he didn't sound quite as certain as he had a few moments before.

'I'll take on the copper one,' Tats said quietly. The keepers were settling into a circle to eat. 'I'll clean him up a bit and get some of the parasites off him before we leave this morning.'

'I'll help you.' Thymara hadn't noticed Jerd, but there she was, sitting down carefully next to Tats. She balanced her chunk of bread on one knee, then held her bowl in one hand and her spoon in the other to eat.

'I'll take the silver,' Thymara declared recklessly. Somehow she didn't think it would sit well with Skymaw. She suspected the dragon would be jealous of any attention she gave the creature. Well, let her see how it felt, she thought, almost vindictively.

'I'll help you get his tail bandaged up,' Sylve offered.

'And I can get some fish for him, maybe,' Rapskal said as he wedged himself into their circle between Tats and Thymara, blithely unaware that he might be intruding. He dug into his porridge with fervour. 'Never got porridge for breakfast at home,' he announced suddenly through a full mouth. 'Grain was too expensive for my family. We always had soup for breakfast. Or gourdcakes.'

Almost all the keepers were present now, all crouched or sitting with bowls and bread. Several nodded.

'Sometimes we had porridge with honey,' Sylve said. 'But not often,' she added, as if embarrassed to admit that her family had been able to afford such things.

'We usually had fruit, whatever my father and I had gathered the day before and hadn't sold,' Thymara said, and was ambushed by a wave of homesickness. She looked around herself suddenly. What was she doing here, sitting on the hard ground, eating porridge and preparing to depart upriver? For a moment, none of it made sense, and the world seemed to rock around her as she realized how far she was from home and family.

Thymara?'

She nearly dropped her spoon at the man's voice behind her. She turned and found Sedric standing awkwardly at the edge of their circle. He was impeccably groomed and a fragrance almost like perfume floated on the air. 'Yes?' she answered him stupidly.