City of Dragons

Sintara was hungry. It was Thymara’s fault. The stupid girl had brought her only a couple of fish in the very early morning. She had promised her more food later. Promised that she would be back before evening and that before dark she would bring her meat. Promised her.

The dragon lashed her tail angrily. The promise of a human. What was that worth? She shifted unhappily, feeling as if emptiness had filled her belly and was now climbing up her throat. She was hungry, not again, but still. She tried to remember the last time she had felt full. Days ago, when Heeby had driven the hoofed herd over the cliffs to their deaths. All the dragons had descended on the riverbank for that glorious feed. Hot meat, running blood. . the memory was a torment to her now. That was what she needed. Not a couple of cold fish that did not even fill her mouth, let alone her belly.

Sintara lifted her head and then reared onto her back legs, sniffing the air. Her tongue forked out, tasting for scents. All she scented were the other dragons and their keepers. The riverbank and the open meadow and the deciduous forest that backed it were not as confining as the hatching beach at Cassarick, but they were rapidly becoming as trodden and smelly. Dragons were not creatures to be corralled like cattle, doomed to wander through their own droppings and trampled paths. Yet even without fences or thick rain forest, they were confined here.

Only Heeby was truly free. She flew and hunted and fed. She came back to this place only out of affection for her half-wit keeper. Sintara dropped back onto all fours. And Thymara had gone off with Heeby and Rapskal that morning. Was that what her keeper expected of her? That she should learn to fly so that she could be a mount for Thymara and her friends?

She’d sooner eat them.

Her stomach clenched again. Where was the girl?

Reluctantly, because it was not fitting that a dragon seek a human, let alone admit that she needed her aid, she reached out to touch minds with Thymara.

And could not find her. She was gone.

What shocked her was not just that the girl was gone but the depth of her own dismay. Gone. Thymara was gone. Gone most likely meant dead, because it was unlikely that her keeper could have moved so far physically as to make contact difficult, or so quickly learned sufficient control of her thoughts that she could block the dragon from touching her. So her keeper was dead. Her supplier of easy meat and fish was gone. Sintara’s mind leaped to the next step. She’d have to have another keeper. But all of them were taken, unless she focused on Alise again, and Alise was hopeless as a hunter. Amusing to taunt, and excellent at flattery, but useless when one was hungry.

Taking another dragon’s keeper would likely mean a fight. She was not the only dragon who was still painfully dependent on her keeper. And the sad truth was that Thymara had been the best of the lot. Not only could she hunt, she had a mind and some spirit that added spice to their frequent clashes. Her only real alternatives to Thymara were Carson and Tats. The hunter belonged to Spit, and she had no wish to do battle with the nasty little silver. He was potently venomous now and malevolently clever. Besides, Carson was not someone she could bully. Spit had been loud all day long in his complaints that his keeper was starving him in an attempt to force him to fly. She had no desire to accept such an iron-willed keeper.

Tats belonged to Fente, and for a moment, Sintara relished the idea of ripping apart the nasty little green queen. Except that if she struck out at any female, all the males would intervene, especially Mercor. Outnumbered as the males were, they viewed a threat to any of the females as a danger to the possibility that they might someday mate. Not that any of them had much chance of that.

Sintara huffed in anger and felt the poison sacs swell in her throat. The entire situation was completely unacceptable. How had her foolish keeper managed to kill herself in such a way that Sintara had not even noticed? The previous times that Thymara had encountered danger, Sintara’s head had been full of her shrill squeaking and squealing. So what had happened to her?

The answer came to her instantly. Heeby. It was the red dragon’s fault. She’d probably dropped her in the river, to sink like a stone. Or in her dimness, she’d forgotten the girl was Sintara’s keeper and had eaten her. The mere thought that the half-wit red dragon had dared to eat her keeper filled Sintara with fury. She reared onto her hind legs and then came down with a crash, whipping her head on her serpentine neck, stimulating her poison glands to full action. Where was the damned little red newt? She flung her consciousness wide and touched her, and her fury roared to fresh flames. Heeby was asleep! Fat and full-bellied, she sprawled asleep beside her third kill of the day. She hadn’t even eaten it all: Sintara could sense how Heeby smelled the pleasing odor of bloody flesh as she slept.

It was too much, insult upon injury. The little scarlet queen would pay, and Sintara did not care how much Mercor or anyone else objected.

Tail lashing, she strode through the scattered trees and out onto the open hillside that fronted the riverbank. She would find Heeby and she would kill her. She could feel her eyes growing scarlet with blood, feel how their colors spun and how her blue wings flushed with blood and color as she unfolded them and shook them out. They were strong, stronger than they had been when she’d hatched, stronger than they had been the time she’d managed that first long glide that had ended so ignominiously in the river. She could fly. The only thing that had been holding her back was foolish caution, her unwillingness to fail before the others or to risk it all in a long glide out over the river. But those fears and cautions were gone, burned away by her fury. Heeby had killed her keeper, and Sintara would not tolerate that insult. The red queen would pay!

She looked at the wide open hillside before her and at the swift cold river at the bottom of it. So be it. She opened her wings and sprang into the air. Beat, beat, touch the ground, beat, beat, beat, touch the ground but more lightly, beat, beat, beat, beat. .

And suddenly there was a gust of wind off the water and she caught it under her wings and lifted on it. She stroked her wings more strongly, tucking her forelegs to her chest and stretching her back legs into alignment with her tail, until she offered only smoothness and no resistance to the air. Her wings propelled her forward as her head cleaved the wind. Flying. Her body reached for memories of how to do this and she allowed it, refusing to let her mind interfere. Flying was like breathing, not a thing to ponder but a thing to do.

She caught another updraft and rose on it, and caught, too, the trumpeting of dragons from far below. She beat her wings more strongly. Let them look at her, let them see that she, the blue queen Sintara, had achieved full flight before any of them! She tipped her wings to circle wide over them, filled her lungs, and trumpeted her triumph to the skies. Flying! A dragon was flying! Let all look up in awe!

She glanced down-and saw nothing but moving water below her and felt a lurch of terror. Memories of being trapped and tumbled in the icy flow for a moment overwhelmed her unthinking flight. For a terrifying instant, she forgot how to fly, forgot everything except the danger of the river. Her forelegs twitched reflexively in a swimming motion, and she lashed her tail. Falling. She was falling, not flying, and then as full panic set in and she beat her wings frantically, she rose again. But the smooth effortlessness of flight was broken. She felt too clearly the uneven musculature of her wings; sudden weariness made her wings feel heavy. Flight was work, hard work, and she had had almost nothing to eat today, and not much more the day before.

All thoughts of vengeance on Heeby, all fear of the river was suddenly cast out by her overwhelming hunger. She needed food, needed fresh bloody meat now, at any cost. The urgency of her hunger steadied her. Hunt and feed or die, her body told her. It had no patience with her vanity or fear. Hunt and feed. She poured all her effort into the beating of her wings and circled wider, taking her flight over the keepers’ pathetic settlement and beyond, back into the hills and valleys. She opened all her senses to the need for sustenance.

And then she glimpsed them, a small group of horned creatures making its way along a stony ridge. The animals were in clear view, but soon they would vanish into the trees. .

They became aware of her almost as soon as she spotted them. Two broke from the group, galloping wildly toward the trees, but the other four craned their necks and stared stupidly up at her as she dived on them.

Sintara’s weaker wing buckled just before she hit them, sending her slewing to one side. But her wide reaching claws still laid one open, shoulder to woolly hip, and she landed on top of another. It bleated once as they tumbled together, a most ungainly and bruising landing for a dragon. Then Sintara clutched it to her breast, snaked her head down, and seized it in her jaws. Her mouth enveloped its bony head as her forelegs squeezed its ribs. It was dead before she and the creature skidded to a halt on the steep and rocky hillside. Dead but only just as she tore at it frantically, heedless of bone and horn and hoof as she ripped it into chunks she could gulp down whole.

Feeding in such a way was painful. She swallowed convulsively, not pausing to enjoy any part of it. When it