‘Thank you.’ The words seemed inadequate but she didn’t have anything better to offer her.
‘It was nothing,’ she replied. ‘Harrikin and I are actually getting good at it. I never expected to learn how to float a dragon.’ She smiled with her mouth, glanced at Thymara with red-rimmed eyes, and then away.
‘Mercor and Ranculos?’ Thymara asked. She would not mention Rapskal’s name. Sharing the pain didn’t help it.
‘Mercor is weary but otherwise fine. I’ve asked him if he ever recalled anything like this happening before. Once, he said, one of his ancestors was foolish enough to fly round a mountain that he knew was about to explode. It was a tall one, covered with glaciers and snow, and he wanted to see what would happen when the fire met the ice. When it did erupt, the ice and snow melted instantly and flowed down the mountain, taking stone and muck with it in a thick soup. He said it flowed swift and far, almost out of sight. He wonders if that is what happened, somewhere far away from us, and the wave of it only reached us now.’
Thymara was silent, trying to imagine such a thing. She shook her head. What Sylve was suggesting was on a scale far beyond anything she could imagine. A whole mountain melting and flowing away, clear out of sight? Was such a thing possible?
‘And your dragon, Ranculos?’ she asked Harrikin.
‘Ranculos was clipped by a log in the first tumble of the wave. He’s bruised badly, but at least his skin isn’t broken so the water isn’t eating into him.’ Sylve answered for him. Harrikin nodded slowly to her words. He’d become very still, and in repose he reminded Thymara even more of a lizard, right down to his jewelled unblinking eyes.
‘You found a boat and rescued Tats?’
‘It was random luck. I’d left my dish in the boat. The fish was nearly cooked and I went back to get it. I climbed in and was sorting through my stuff when the wave hit. I held tight to the boat and eventually it came out on top of the water and upright. All I had to do was bail. But it snatched all my gear out. I don’t have a thing except what I’m wearing.’
Slowly it came to Thymara that the same was true for her.
She had not thought her spirits could sink lower, but they did.
‘Does anyone have anything left?’ she asked, thinking desolately of her hunting gear, her blanket, even her dry pair of socks. All gone.
‘We recovered three boats, but I don’t think anything was in any of them. Not even oars. We’ll have to make something that works. Greft has his fire pouch still, but it’s of small use right now. Where would we set a fire? I dread tonight when the mosquitoes come. We’re going to be miserable until the water goes down. And even then, well, my friends, we’ve hard times to face.’
Alise spoke. ‘Captain Leftrin will come and find us. And once he does, and the water goes down, we’ll go on.’
‘Go on?’ Harrikin spoke softly, slowly, as if he could not believe his ears.
The Bingtown woman looked round at her small circle of startled listeners and gave a tiny laugh. ‘Don’t you know your history? It’s what Traders do. We go on. Besides,’ and she shrugged, ‘there’s nothing else we can do.’
Day the 19th of the Prayer Moon
Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
to Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown
Enclosed, a report from the Cassarick Rain Wild Council as sent to the Trehaug Rain Wild Council, concerning the earthquake, black rain, and white flood, and the likely demise of the members of the Kelsingra expedition, the crew of the Tarman, and all dragons.
Erek,
We have never seen such a flash flood as we have just endured. Lives were lost in both excavation sites, the new docks that were just built at Cassarick are gone, and a score of trees that fronted the river were torn loose. It is only good fortune that so few houses were lost. Damage to the bridges and to the Trader Hall here is substantial. I doubt we with ever hear what has become of the dragons and their keepers. I only received your bird message about visiting the Rain Wilds a day ago. I hope you were not on the river. If you are well please send me a bird to say so as soon as you receive this.
Detozi
CHAPTER SIX
Decision Point
Water splashed against his face, startling him awake from his nightmare. He coughed and spat. ‘Stop it!’ he choked and tried to put a threat in his voice. ‘Get out of my room. I’m getting up. I won’t be late.’
Despite his plea, water slopped against his face again. His stupid sister was going to get it now!
He opened his eyes to a new nightmare. He dangled facedown from the jaws of a dragon. The dragon was swimming in a white river. The sky had the uncertain light of dawn. Sedric’s head was barely above the water. He could feel the dragon’s teeth pressed lightly against the skin of his back and chest. His arms and legs were outside the dragon’s mouth, dragging though the water. The water pushed against the swimming dragon, shoving them steadily downstream. And the dragon was tired. She swam with a dogged one-two, one-two stroke of her front legs. He turned his head and saw that only the dragon’s shoulders and head were still above water. The copper was sinking. And when her strength gave out and she went down, Sedric would go with her.
‘What happened?’ he asked, his voice a croak.
Big water. She gurgled her response but the words formed in his mind. She pressed an image at him, a crashing wave of white filled with rocks and logs and dead animals. Even now, the moving face of the river was littered with flotsam. She swam downstream beside a tangled mat of creepers and small bits of driftwood. A dead animal’s hoofed feet were partially visible in it. The river caught the tangle, spun it, and it dispersed.
‘What happened to everyone else?’ The dragon gave him no response. He was so close to the water’s surface that he had no perspective. Nothing but water everywhere. Could that be so? He turned his head slowly from side to side. No Tarman. No boat. No keepers, no other dragons. Just himself, the copper dragon, the wide white river and the forest in the distance.
He tried to recall what had come before. He’d left the boat. He’d spoken to Thymara. He’d gone looking for the dragon. He’d intended to resolve his situation. Somehow. And there his recall of events ended. He shifted in the dragon’s mouth. That woke points of pain where the dragon’s teeth pressed against him. His dangling legs were cold and nearly numb. The skin of his face stung. He tried to move his arms and found he could, but even that small shift made the dragon’s head wobble. She caught herself and swam on, but now he was barely out of the water. The river threatened to start sloshing into her gullet.
He looked to see how far away the shore was, but could not find any shore. To one side of them, he saw a line of trees sticking out of the water. When he turned his eyes the other way, he saw only more river. When had it become so wide? He blinked, trying to make his eyes focus. Day was growing stronger around them and light bounced off the white surface of the river. There was no shore under the trees; the river was in a flood stage.
And the dragon was swimming downriver with the current.
‘Copper,’ he said, trying to get her attention. She paddled doggedly onward.
He searched his mind and came up with her name. ‘Relpda. Swim towards the shore. Not down the river. Swim towards the trees. Over there.’ He started to lift an arm to point, but moving hurt and when he shifted, the dragon turned her head, nearly putting his face in the water. She kept paddling steadily downstream.