‘No. Not here, at least,’ Ranculos replied wearily.

Big blue Sestican slogged his way over to them. Mud streaked his azure hide. ‘Then it’s agreed. Tomorrow we move on.’

‘Nothing is agreed,’ Mercor replied mildly. The gold dragon opened his wings and shook them lightly. Water and mud pattered down. His peacock-eyes markings were streaked with grime. She had not seen him so dirty since they had left Cassarick.

‘Strange,’ Sestican commented sourly. ‘It sounded to me that we had decided not to lie down and die here. So the alternative would be, I think, to keep moving on, towards Kelsingra.’

‘Kelsingra,’ said Fente. She made the name sound like a curse. The little green dragon fluffed out the fronds of her immature mane. If she’d been properly grown, it would have appeared threatening. As it was, she reminded Sintara of a green-and-gold blossom on a skinny stem.

‘I, for one, see no reason to wait for the keepers. We don’t need them.’ Kalo wandered over. He limbered his wings as he came, spreading their blue-black expanse and shaking them to rid them of mud. They were larger than Mercor’s. Was he attempting to remind them all that he was the largest and most powerful male?

‘You’re splattering mud all over me. Stop it.’ Sintara lifted the frills along her neck, confident that her own display was at least as intimidating as his.

‘You’re so covered with mud now, I don’t know how you’d tell,’ Kalo complained, but he folded his wings all the same.

Sintara was in no mood to let him make peace so easily. ‘And you may not need your keeper, but I’ve a use for mine. Tomorrow I will have them both groom me. I might have to stand in mud, but there’s no reason I must wear it.’

‘Mine is negligent. Lazy. Full of himself. Angry at everyone.’ Kalo’s eyes spun with anger and unhappiness.

‘Does he still think that perhaps butchering a dragon and selling him like meat would solve his problems?’ Sestican baited him happily.

Kalo rose to it. No matter how often he complained of what a poor keeper Greft was, he would not tolerate comments critical of him. Even after Greft had made his obscene suggestion, Kalo had snapped at any of the others who dared complain about him. So now he opened his jaws wide and hissed loudly at Sestican.

He seemed as surprised as any of them when a bluish mist of venom issued from his mouth, to hang briefly in the air. Sintara lidded her eyes and turned her face away. ‘What are you about?’ Fente demanded angrily. The little green splattered mud up on all of them as she scampered out of reach of the cloud. Sestican immediately stretched his own jaws wide and gathered breath.

‘Stop!’ Mercor commanded. ‘Stop it, both of you!’

He had no more right to issue orders than any other dragon. Nonetheless, that never prevented him from doing it, thought Sintara. And almost always, the others obeyed him. There was something in his bearing that commanded their respect, even their loyalty. Now he waded closer to Kalo. The big blue-black dragon stood his ground, even half-lifting his wings as if he would challenge Mercor. But the golden dragon had no intention of seeking battle. Instead, he stared intently at the other big male, his black eyes whirling as if they gathered up the darkness around them.

‘Now do that again,’ Mercor challenged him, but not as male to male. Rather he stared at Kalo as if he could not believe what he had witnessed. He was not alone. The other dragons, sensing something about the urgency in Mercor’s voice, were drawing nearer.

‘But downwind of us!’ Sestican interjected.

‘And put some heart in it,’ Mercor added.

Kalo folded his wings. He did it slowly, and slowly was how he turned away from the gathering dragons, to face downwind of them. If he was attempting to make it appear he was not obeying Mercor, he failed, thought Sintara. But she kept the thought to herself, for she too wished to see if he could, indeed, spit venom. All of them should have been capable of it since they emerged from their cases but none had achieved reliability or potency with that most basic weapon in a dragon’s arsenal. Had Kalo? She watched his ribs swell as he took in air. This time, she saw him work the poison glands in his throat. The muscles in his powerful neck rippled. He threw back his head and snapped it forward, jaws opening wide. He roared and a visible mist of bluish toxin rode with the sound. It drifted in a cloud over the water. She was not the only dragon to rumble in amazement. She watched the toxin disperse and heard the very soft hiss when acid met acid as it settled on the water.

Before anyone else could react, Fente propelled herself out into the open river. She shook herself all over, opened her wings wide and threw back her head. When she launched her toxin with a trumpet like a woman screaming, the cloud was smaller but more dense. Again and again, she shrieked it forth, until on her fourth try there was no visible sign of poison. Nonetheless, she turned to all of them and proclaimed, ‘Make no mistake. You may all be larger than I am, but I am just as deadly as any of you are. Respect me!’

‘It would be wiser to save your toxins for hunting rather than making a show of them,’ Mercor rebuked her mildly. ‘You have no way of knowing how long it will take you to recover them. If you saw game right now, it would escape you.’

The small green dragon spun to face them. Now the layered fronds of her immature mane stood out stiffly around her neck. She shivered them, a move more serpent than dragon. ‘Don’t preach to me about wisdom, golden one. Nor hunting. I do not need your advice. Now that I have my poison again, I am not sure that I even need your company.’

‘Or your keeper?’ Ranculos asked in mild curiosity.

‘That remains to be seen,’ she snapped. ‘Tats grooms me, and it pleases me to hear him praise me. I may keep him. But having a keeper does not mean I must stay in company with you or that raggle-taggle of other keepers. Nor do I need to be near keepers so disrespectful they speak of butchering a dragon as if he were a cow.’ She beat her wings, stirring air and spattering water. ‘I have my poison and soon I will be able to fly. Then I will need nothing of anyone save myself.’

‘So Heeby spoke of flying, too,’ Sestican said quietly.

‘Heeby. That’s not even her true name. She couldn’t even summon her true name. Heeby. That’s a name for a dog or a rather stupid horse. Not a dragon.’

‘Speak no ill,’ Mercor advised her. ‘Her end might be the same one we all meet.’

‘She didn’t end because she never began,’ Fente retorted. ‘Half a dragon is no dragon at all.’

Privately, Sintara agreed with her. The dimmer dragons still distressed her in a way she could not explain. To be around a creature with the shape of a dragon but to have no sense of that creature thinking the thoughts of a dragon was unsettling. One night she had overheard some of the keepers telling ‘ghost’ stories to one another and wondered if that were not the same sensation. Something was there, but not there. A familiar shape with no substance to it.

And that was exactly what she saw now as the silver dragon with no name laboriously paddled out into the river. His tail had long healed, but he still held it stiffly as if the skin were too tight. His body had muscled from travel, and since his keepers had wormed him, he had put on healthier flesh. But his legs were still stumpy and short. The wings he now spread were almost normal, however. All the dragons watched in silence as he lifted them carefully, flapped them several times in imitation of Fente, and then drew back his head. When he snapped it forward, jaws wide, Sintara saw that his teeth were twice the size of Fente’s and double rowed. And the cloud of toxin that came forth with his guttural roar was thick and nearly purple. The droplets were large and they fell, hissing, onto the river’s surface. Sintara turned her face away from the acrid scent of strong venom.