Carson sighed. “It’s not going to be easy. But I’ve been thinking about it for some days now. Left to themselves, the dragons are just not trying that hard to learn. Right now we can get enough fish in our traps to keep them from starving. And we’ve had a few windfalls, such as Heeby being willing to drive game for them. But we can’t count on things like that. The fish run could dwindle or end any day. And the more we hunt locally and Heeby hunts close to our camp, the less game there will be. These are big predators with large appetites. They need to expand their hunting territory and they need to be able to feed themselves. Otherwise, this area will simply turn into a second Cassarick for them. We didn’t come all this way to allow that to happen.”
Sedric listened in chilled dismay. Now that Carson laid it out so clearly, he wondered how he could not have seen it for himself.
His stomach growled again and Carson laughed, sounding almost like himself. “Go eat something. The smoked fish should be done enough. And take something to Relpda.”
“Are you going to take something to Spit?”
Carson shook his head, not in denial, but at himself. “Yes. Eventually. But not until I’ve shown him that he can’t push me around. He has a different temperament from Relpda. That little silver has a streak of mean and resentment that your copper doesn’t have. It’s not just toward the other dragons. It’s for all the keepers, too. It’s for anyone who is whole and functioning when he isn’t.”
“I thought she could only carry one rider at a time.” Thymara was still uncertain about this whole venture.
Rapskal looked down at her from Heeby’s shoulders. “She has been growing. Bigger and stronger. And her wings keep growing most of all. She says she can do this. Come on up.” He bent at the waist and leaned down to stretch his hand out toward her. He was grinning at her in a way that was obviously a challenge. She couldn’t back down now. She reached up to grip his wrist as he seized hers. There was nothing else to hold on to. All of Heeby was gleaming and overlapping crimson scales, smoother than polished stone. She scrabbled up the dragon’s shoulder, worried that she was offending her with such an ungainly climb onto her back. Once she was behind Rapskal, sitting spraddle-legged behind him on the dragon’s wide back, she asked, “What do I hold on to?”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Me!” he replied, and then, leaning forward, he said quietly to his dragon, “We’re ready.”
“No, I’m not!” Thymara protested, but it was too late. Too late to decide she didn’t want to risk her life riding a dragon across a river, too late even to find time to tuck her cloak more tightly around her or be sure of her seat. The dragon lurched into motion, running down the grassy hillside. Thymara was uncomfortably aware for a moment that the other keepers were watching them take flight together. But in the next instant, as Heeby made a wild leap, landed hard, and then leaped again, abruptly snapping her wings wide open, she could think only of holding tight to Rapskal’s tattered coat. She tried not to worry about what he was holding on to. She hugged herself to his back, turning her head sideways and closing her eyes as the flapping of the dragon’s wings drove the cold air against her face. She was too aware of the dragon’s muscles moving beneath her, straining mightily; and then suddenly the lurching stride was gone and they were rising, the rhythm of Heeby’s wings gone from the frantic fluttering of a sparrow to the steady strokes of a big bird of prey.
Thymara risked a peek. At first all she saw was Rapskal’s neck. Then, as she dared to turn her head, she saw the panorama of the river spread out below her. She tipped her head slightly and tried to look down, but she was too cautious to lean out. All she could see was the side of her own body and then the side of the dragon’s wide chest.
“Loosen your arms. I can barely breathe!” Rapskal complained, shouting the words at her through the flow of air.
Thymara tried to obey him and found she couldn’t. She might will her grip to loosen, but her arms were reluctant to obey her. She compromised by shifting her grip slightly. Her hands still clutched his shirt tightly. Now she really regretted agreeing to this. What had she been thinking? One slip from Heeby’s back meant certain death in the swift cold water below. Why had it seemed like an invitation to an exciting and daring adventure rather than an irrational opportunity to risk her life? Surely they must nearly be to the other side by now! Then, as she realized that landing there meant that she would have to brave another flight back, her courage departed completely and she was gripped by sheer fear. This wasn’t fun, or adventure. It was a stupid jaunt into danger.
She tried to get her panic under control. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t a person who got scared easily. She was competent and strong. She could take care of herself.
But not in a situation like this, a situation in which her skills meant nothing and she had no control over the risks involved. That, she realized abruptly, was what she disliked. The risks were wildly out of her control. She was in a situation where she depended entirely on Rapskal’s good sense and Heeby’s flight skills to keep her safe. And she was not truly confident of either of those things. She leaned forward to speak right by his ear.
“Rapskal! I want to go back. Right now!”
“But we haven’t reached Kelsingra. I haven’t shown you the city.” He was clearly startled by the request.
“I’ll wait. I’ll see it when the others do, when we get the docks repaired so that Tarman can tie up to them.”
“No. There’s no reason to wait. This is too important! There’s something I have to show to you now, today. You’re the only one who will understand it right away. I know that Alise Finbok doesn’t. She thinks the city is some big dead thing that we have to keep just the way it is. But it’s not. And Kelsingra is not for her, anyway. It’s for us. It’s waiting for us.”
Rapskal’s words distracted her from her terror. “The city isn’t for Alise? That’s crazy. She came so far just to help find it, and she already knows so much about it. She loves Kelsingra. And she wants to protect it. That’s why she was angry at you for breaking a window. She said that you must have more respect for the ruins, that we have to keep everything safe and exactly as it is until we’ve learned everything we can from them.”
“The city isn’t meant to be kept safe. It’s meant to be used.”
A new uneasiness stirred in Thymara. “Is that what this trip is about? Using the city?”
“Yes. But it doesn’t hurt it. And I didn’t break any window! I told her that. Yes, I went up in that tower; I’ve been into just about all the big buildings. But I didn’t break anything. That panel was broken when I got there. If you want, I’ll take you there and show you what she was so upset about. It’s pretty amazing up there; you can see almost as much from that tower as you can see from Heeby’s back. And there’s this sort of map thing that shows what the city used to look like. But that’s not the most important thing. It isn’t what I want to show you first.”
“I can see it all later. Please, Rapskal. I don’t like this.” She forced the words past her teeth. “Look. I’m scared. I want to go back.”
“We’re more than halfway. Look around, Thymara. You’re flying! When your own wings get big and strong enough, you’ll be able to do this on your own. You can’t be afraid of it now!”
She had never, she suddenly knew, believed that she was going to be able to fly. She’d never truly realized what flying would be, how high above everything she would be. How swiftly the wind would pass her. Tears flowed from the corner of her slitted eyes as she tried to take his advice and look around. Open air around them and the mountains in the distance. She tipped her head slightly so she could look down. There was the city, spread wide before them. She had not realized it was so big! It sprawled on a flat stretch of land between the riverbank and the mountains. From here, the damage to Kelsingra was far more evident. Trees and brush cloaked an ancient landslide that had buried part of the city. And a great cleft reached into the city from the river, damaging the buildings there. She blinked, turned her head, and looked far upriver. Her breath caught as she glimpsed the beginning of a bridge’s arch. It ended abruptly, and the river rippled over the fallen remnants of stone at the water’s edge. It was hard for her to conceive that anyone had ever thought they could span such a river with a bridge, let alone that once the bridge had existed.
“Hold tight to me. Sometimes she stumbles a bit when she lands, still.”
He didn’t need to repeat the advice. Thymara clung to him like a limpet on a rock as the dragon dipped down toward the city. Lower and lower Heeby went, and the chill and deadly river grew larger and wider beneath them. She slowed the beat of her wings, and Thymara felt as if they were dropping far too fast. She clenched her teeth, willing herself not to scream. Then the wide streets of the city were right in front of them, rushing up at them as Heeby suddenly beat her wings frantically. The wind of that motion plucked at Thymara, trying to tear her free of her frantic grip on Rapskal. Then the dragon landed, feet braced and claws skittering on the pavement stones.
