Perhaps Sintara attempted to set her down beside Alise. But the effort failed, and Thymara fell on top of the Bingtown woman. Alise’s arms closed around her in an engulfing embrace that both kept her from sliding back into the water and sent a spike of agony down her back as her clutching hands pressed against Thymara’s injury.

Thymara tried not to struggle against the grip that was saving her. An instant later, they were both starting to slide down the dragon’s sleekly-scaled front shoulder. ‘Hold on!’ Alise screamed by her ear, and Thymara reached out for anything that might offer purchase. Her scrabbling claws caught at the edges of Sintara’s scales; she was sure the dragon would have protested angrily if she hadn’t been struggling for her own life.

Alise’s grip on Thymara had gone from saving the girl from falling to clutching at her to stay on the dragon. Thymara risked letting go with one hand and lunged for a better grip. She hooked her hand over the joint where Sintara’s wings were anchored to her back. ‘Hold on to me!’ she gasped to Alise, and used all her strength to drag them back on top of the dragon.

Once they were on top, she managed to loosen Alise’s grip on her enough that she could slide forward. She seated herself just in front of Sintara’s wings, pushing her heels back and gripping the dragon with her knees. It was not at all a secure perch, but it was better than where she had been. Behind her, she felt Alise settling into place. The Bingtown woman took a tight grip on Thymara’s belt, and suddenly there was a moment in which to take stock of her situation.

‘What happened?’ she shouted back to Alise.

‘I don’t know!’ Seated as close as she was, her words still barely reached Thymara’s ear. The river roared around them. ‘A huge wave came down the river. Captain Leftrin told me that sometimes, after a quake, the river ran white for a time. But he never mentioned anything like this.’

Wind snapped Thymara’s wet black braids. All around them was a fury of sound. Her eyes could make no sense of what the faint moonlight showed her. The river was white as milk. As she clung to the struggling dragon, she shared the creature’s panic and fury. And felt, too, her growing weariness. The water was filled with floating wreckage. Tree limbs and trunks, mats of uprooted bushes, and carcasses of drowned creatures bobbed and swirled in the river. When she stared towards the bank, it looked as if the flow of water now extended far under the forest eaves. As she watched, an immense tree swayed and began an impossibly slow fall. She cried out in terror but there was nothing Sintara could do to avoid it. The tree was coming down, like a tower falling. It leaned, groaned, leaned again, and suddenly the river swept them past it and away from that danger.

‘Dragon!’ Alise shouted suddenly, and stupidly let go of Thymara’s belt with one hand to point downriver of them. ‘Another dragon. I think it is Veras!’

It was. Thymara recognized her by the crest that the dark green female had recently begun to grow. She was still swimming, but it seemed to Thymara that she was lower in the water, as if her weariness was pulling her under. Veras was Jerd’s dragon. Thymara wondered where her keeper was, and then, like a second wave breaking over her, she realized she was not the only keeper swept away by the flood. The others had been gathered around the bonfire. All of them would have been inundated. And what had become of their boats and gear, of Tarman, of all the other dragons? How could she have been thinking only of herself; every one, every thing that made up her current life had been inundated and swept away? Her eyes swept the river in desperate search, but the light was too dim and there were too many objects floating and bobbing in the roiling water.

Beneath her, she felt Sintara’s ribs swell as the dragon took a breath. Then a trumpeting cry burst from her. In the distance, Veras turned her head. A tiny sound like a bird’s squawk reached her straining ears. Then another came, a deeper longer note, drawing her eyes to a massive swimming shape that had to be Ranculos. He bellowed again, and the sense of the sound reached her mind as well. ‘Mercor says swim for the bank. The trees will give us something to brace against. Hold in place until the water goes down. Swim for the bank!’

Sintara’s ribs swelled with air again. With greater energy she trumpeted out the message, passing it on to any who might hear her. ‘Swim for the bank! Swim for the trees!’

In the distance, she heard it echoed by another dragon. And perhaps a second time. After that, at irregular intervals, she heard a dragon trumpet. It seemed to come from the direction of the shore. ‘Go towards the sound,’ she urged Sintara.

Following that advice was not an easy task. The current gripped them firmly and the floating debris created obstacle after obstacle as Sintara battled towards the shore. Once they were caught in an eddy and spun round and round, until Thymara had no sense of direction left.

Alise held tight to Thymara’s belt and gritted her teeth against the pain of her fresh scalds. Where her copper gown touched her, her skin was protected, but her cheeks and forehead and eyelids burned from the acid water. She turned her face up to the rain and felt its coolness as a blessing. She gritted her teeth, her lips pulling back in a sardonic smile. She could die here and she was worrying about a little pain. Ridiculous. She laughed aloud.

Thymara turned to stare at her. ‘Are you all right?’

For a moment, the sight of her eyes glowing pale blue in the night unsettled Alise. But then she nodded grimly. ‘I’m all right as I can be. I’ve counted eight dragons so far; or at least I think I have. I may have counted some twice.’

‘I haven’t seen any of the other keepers. Or Tarman. Have you?’

‘No.’ Alise bit the word off short. She wouldn’t, couldn’t worry now. Tarman was a big boat; it had to be all right. Leftrin would come to find her and save her. He had to. He was her only hope now. For a moment she marvelled that she could put so much faith in a mere man. Then she shook the thought from her mind. He was all she had that she could count on. She would not doubt him now.

All around them, the water seethed and roared. The sound pressed on her ears. The fury of the first wave had passed, but the water that followed it swelled the river and powered the current. Alise gripped with her knees as if she were riding a horse and held tight to Thymara’s belt and prayed. All her muscles ached from being clenched so long. Sweet Sa, how long could sheer terror last? Beneath her, the dragon struggled, and seemed to swim less powerfully than she had. She wondered how much time had passed. The dragon must be getting exhausted. If Sintara gave up, then all of them would die. She knew she could not survive in the deluge without her. She leaned closer to the dragon’s head.

‘It’s not far now, my beauty, my queen. See, there is the line of trees. You can make it. Don’t try to swim straight to it. Let the current carry you but ease towards the shore, my gem, my priceless beauty.’

She felt something from the dragon, some warming of strength, as if her mere human words encouraged her in a way that defied the physical challenges.

Thymara sensed it, too. ‘Great queen, you have to survive. The memories of all your ancestors depend on you to carry them forward through time. Swim! Or all they have been will be forever lost, and all the world will be less for that. You must survive. You must!’

The shore came closer so slowly. Despite their encouragement, Sintara’s strength was flagging. Then the sound of trumpeting reached them. Along the shore, wedged against the trees, were dragons. They called to her, and Alise felt a thrill shoot through her when she heard thin human voices raised as well.