City of Dragons

bit and wonder what had become of the malformed dragons and their keepers. Suspense was an excellent tool for keeping powerful people off balance. It gave one bargaining power. Bargaining power he suspected he was going to need.

A winter rain was falling, shushing the river with a million tiny splashes. Water ran off the decks and back into the gray waters of the wide Rain Wild River. To either side of the river, tall dense forest loomed. The rain pattered on an infinity of leaves there, working its way down from the canopy of the trees through the layers of life and greenery, past all the strata of cottages and mansions built in the mighty tree limbs until at last it fell to the permanently sodden forest floor. It was both very familiar and suddenly strange to come back to the towering trees that lined the river. Kelsingra had shown him a terrain far out of his experience. Dry firm land and rolling hills were nice, but Leftrin suspected this would always be home for him.

He squinted through the rain as they approached the docks. There was a strange vessel tied up there, and he scowled at the look of it. It was long and narrow, of shallow draught, fitted for both sails and oars. Bright blue paint and gold trim on the deckhouse gleamed even through the misty rain. Competition for Tarman? Perhaps the owners might think so, but he doubted it. No other vessel had ever excelled his in navigating the shallower waters of the Rain Wild River. Impervious One he read on her bow. Well, time would tell if that were true. Over his years on the river, he’d seen all sorts of boats that were supposed to be immune to the acid waters of the river. And he’d seen them all sink, eventually. Wizardwood was the only stuff that lasted.

The driving rain made miserable work for Swarge on the barge’s tiller and was scarcely better for the rest of the crew as they maintained their facade of manning their poles and guiding the barge into the dock. They nudged past the Impervious One and found a place to tie up. Leftrin gripped the bow rail, squinting through the downpour. Through the wizardwood railing under his hands, he was aware of his ship. Tarman was grateful for the crew’s show; the rains had swelled the Rain Wild River to near flood stage; it was difficult for the liveship to keep his grip on the bottom. His hidden feet, the secret of his ability to maneuver rapidly through areas where other ships went aground, clawed at the mud, caught, lost touch, and then scrabbled again. With a lurch, Tarman brought himself alongside the docks, and Skelly leaped over the side, clutching the thick mooring line and scampering toward a heavy cleat. She secured it there and then raced aft, to catch the second line that Hennesey tossed to her. In a trice, they were safely fastened to the dock. Tarman and his captain relaxed as the crew moved through the routines of adjusting the moorage lines.

Captain Leftrin had thought the driving rain might keep the Council members safe and dry indoors today. It had. But as the crew brought Tarman in to Cassarick’s floating dock, the drenched young runner had pelted off through the rain to the nearest stair and scampered up the steps like a tree monkey scaling a trunk. Leftrin smiled to see him go. “Well. Soon enough they’ll get word that we’ve docked. And then we’ll see how well we can play the cards we’ve been dealt. Skelly!”

At his bark, his niece jumped nimbly from the dock to the barge and then hurried up to stand at his elbow. “Sir?”

“You’ll stay aboard. I know your folks will be wanting to see you, and we both have some serious news to share with them. I’d like it if we were together when we let them know that your fortune has changed. That all right with you?”

She blinked rain from her lashes and grinned. Her family had expected that Skelly would be his heir. On the strength of that expectation, they had negotiated a profitable betrothal for her, one that she was most anxious to break now that she had met Alum and become infatuated with the quiet dragon keeper. Leftrin did not know if he and Alise would ever have a child to take over ownership of Tarman, but even if they did not, the possibility of an heir displacing her changed Skelly’s fortune completely. She was hoping the boy’s family would decline the betrothal now that her future was uncertain. Leftrin doubted that her parents would be as pleased at the prospect as she was. He didn’t want her to break the news to them alone. That he would speak for her obviously pleased her as she asked, “Is my uncle offering that service or my captain?”

“Don’t get sassy with me, sailor!”

“Sir, yes, regardless of who’s asking.” She grinned insouciantly at him. “I’d like that best myself, if we did it together. And they’d expect me to stay aboard until you reported to the Council. If any of them drop by to visit me here before you get back, I’ll say nothing and tell them the story has to come from you.”

“Good, lass! Now I want no one else to come aboard Tarman while I’m gone. Crew family, that’s okay. Tell them little, and bid them keep what they do hear to themselves. They’ll understand. But no merchants, no Council members, and I’ll tell Hennesey no whores. He can leave the ship for that if he must, but he can’t bring any guests back with him. Not right now.” Leftrin scratched at his wet cheek. His scaling had increased lately, and it itched constantly. Damn dragons. Probably their fault. “I’ll be giving the rest of the crew shore time, but either Swarge or Hennesey must be on board at all times. Bellin, I’ll take your list to the ship’s chandlery and have it filled and sent down. As soon as I’ve wrung our wages out of the Council, I’ll pay off the merchants and send the rest of the money here. Big Eider will go see his mother, as he always does. And you’ll stay aboard and wait until I have time to take you to visit your parents.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rest of his crew, their docking tasks completed, had drifted closer to them. They were weary and haggard, rain drenched and triumphant. He raised his voice to be heard over the rattling of the rain on Tarman’s decks. “I’m counting on all of you to trust me to strike our best deal. Mum’s the word on where we’ve been and what we’ve seen until after I finish our negotiation. Got that?”

Swarge ran a big hand through his hair, pushing the lank strands back from his face. “It’s all agreed to, Cap. You told us before and we haven’t forgotten. Nothing for you to worry about here. Good luck.”

“Squeeze those bastards dry,” Hennesey suggested, and Big Eider’s broad face cracked wide in a grin of agreement.

The others were nodding. Leftrin nodded back, and he felt their confidence in him as both armor and liability. There was a lot depending on him this time, much more than merely getting their pay for a journey accomplished. The councils were notoriously tightfisted, he thought as he returned to his stateroom. His grin looked like a snarl; he’d always wrung his contract money out of them before, and he’d do it this time, too. The signed document that had sent him and his ship on the expedition up the river was already snugly stowed in a waterproofed tube. He hefted it approvingly. They’d live up to their terms of the bargain; they wouldn’t like it, but he’d hold them to their written words, and they’d pay out the coin they’d never expected to spend.

Malta Khuprus sat before her mirror, drawing her comb through the gleaming gold streaks in her softly curling hair. Then she twisted it and slowly began to pin it into place. As her hands worked, almost by themselves, she stared at her reflection in the glass. When would the changes stop? Ever since she’d first come to the Rain Wilds, her body had been changing. Now the gold in her hair was literally gold, not the glossy blond that some folks called gold. The nails of her fingers were crimson. The rosy skin of her face was as finely scaled as a little tree lizard’s belly and as soft. The scarlet “crown” above her brow gleamed.

Her scaling was edged in red; the creamy skin of her childhood still shone through the nearly translucent scales on her cheeks, but her brows were layered rows of ruby scales now. She turned her head, watching the light move over her face, and then sighed.

“Are you well?” Reyn crossed the small room they had rented, covering the distance between them in two strides. He laid his hands on her shoulders and stooped to look at her.

“I’m fine. A bit tired, that’s all.” She set her hands to the small of her back and pressed on her spine. Her back ached abominably, as it had all day. The pull of the weight in her belly could no longer be eased, not by sitting or standing. Yesterday at the negotiation table with the Tattooed diggers had been a day of torment. She’d come back to their rented room hoping to sleep.

A wasted hope. Reclining was the most uncomfortable position of all. She’d let Reyn have the bed and slept propped up with cushions. Now she gave a small grunt of pain as she pressed on her back, and a frown of concern rippled Reyn’s brow. She pushed a smile onto her face and looked up at him in her mirror. “I’m fine,” she repeated and then took a moment to gaze at her husband. His changes were as marked as her own. His eyes gleamed a warm copper. His skin beneath the bronze highlights of his scaling was blue, as blue as the dragon Tintaglia. He smiled at her with sapphire lips. His dark curling hair had taken on steel-blue glints. Her husband. The man who had risked so much to find and claim her. “You are so beautiful,” she said, the compliment escaping her lips easily.

Reyn’s deep eyes danced. “What prompts such wild flattery?” He cocked his head at her, his expression becoming mischievous. “Now what trinket does my lady desire? A necklace of sapphires? Or is it yet another food