meal he’d taken since they’d fed him the elk meat a couple of nights ago. But unlike the other dragons, who had put on flesh and gained muscle since their trek began, the copper one had remained thin. His belly still bulged from what he had eaten last night, but Thymara could have counted his ribs. At the top of his shoulders and along his spine, some of his scales looked as if they were slipping loose from his hide.
Tats stood up from examining the dragon’s muzzle. He put a comforting arm across Sylve’s shoulders. “He’s not dead,” he told her, laying her fear to rest. But in the next breath, he took that comfort from her. “But I think he will be dead before the day is out. It’s not your fault!” he added hastily as Sylve drew in a sobbing breath. “I think you just came into his life too late. Sylve, he didn’t have much of a chance from the start. Look how disproportionate his legs are to the rest of him! And I caught him eating rocks and mud the other night. I think he has worms in his gut; look how swollen his belly is while the rest of him is skinny. Parasites will do that to an animal.”
Sylve made a choking noise. She shrugged off Tats’ touch and walked away from the group. Other keepers were coming to join them, forming a circle around the downed dragon. Thymara bit her lips tight to keep from speaking. Some callous part of her wanted to ask Tats where Jerd was. After all, she was the one who had volunteered to help him with this dragon. Sylve had promised to help with the silver, but the soft-hearted girl had ended up involved with both the failing dragons. And if this copper died, it would devastate her.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lecter asked as he hurried up.
“Parasites,” Rapskal responded wisely. “Eating him up from the inside, so he gets no good from his food.”
Thymara was a bit surprised by the coherency of his remark. Rapskal saw her looking at him and came to stand beside her. “What are we going to do?” he asked her, as if it were up to her.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “What can we do?”
“I think we should make the best of it, and go on,” Greft said. His voice was not loud but his words carried to everyone. Thymara glared at him. She still had not forgiven him for the elk. She hadn’t raised a public fuss about it, but she had avoided speaking to him or Kase or Boxter. She watched them, watched how Greft assumed leadership and tended to push the other keepers around, but hadn’t said anything openly. Now she lifted her head and squared her shoulders, preparing to take him on.
Sylve abruptly turned back to face them all. Her tears had stopped but they’d left red tracks down her face. “The best of it?” she said thickly. “What is that supposed to mean? What can be ‘best’ about this?”
Silence thick as a blanket had fallen over the gathering. Sylve stood, her shoulders lifted and her small fists knotted. All waited to hear what Greft would say. For the first time since Thymara had met him, she saw him hesitant. He surveyed his listeners. It was strange to see his pink human tongue dart out to lick his narrow scaled lips. What was he looking for? Thymara wondered. Acceptance of his leadership? Willingness to follow him as he made “new rules” for them?
“He’s going to die,” he said quietly. Thymara saw a scream gather on Sylve’s face; she held it in.
“And when he dies, his body shouldn’t go to waste.”
“Course not,” said Rapskal, breaking the silence that the others held by tacit consent. His matter of fact boyish voice in contrast to Greft’s controlled and mature speech made him sound foolish as he voiced what everyone else was thinking. “The dragons will eat him to get his memories. And for food. Everyone knows that.” Rapskal looked around at the other keepers, nodding and smiling. Slowly the smile faded from his face; he seemed puzzled at their stillness. Thymara concentrated her attention on Greft again; he had an exasperated look on his face, as if what Rapskal proposed should seem obviously foolish to all of them. But when he spoke, there was a note of caution to his words, as if he hoped someone else would speak for him.
“There may be a better use for his body,” he said, and waited. Thymara held her breath. What was he talking about? He looked around at all of them, daring himself to speak. “There has been talk of offers for—”
“Dragon flesh belongs to dragons.” It was not a human who spoke. Despite his great size, the golden dragon could move quietly. He towered above them, his head lifted high to look down on Greft. The keepers were parting to let him advance as if they were reeds giving way to the river’s flow. Mercor strode majestically past them. He looked, Thymara thought, magnificent. Since their journey had begun, he had put on weight and muscle. He was beginning to look the way a dragon was supposed to look. With the muscling, his legs looked more proportionate. His tail seemed to have grown. Only his broken-kite wings betrayed him. They were still too small and frail-looking to lift even a part of him.
He bent his long neck to sniff at the copper dragon’s body. Then he swivelled his head to stare at Greft. “She’s not dead,” he told him coldly. “It’s a bit early to plan to sell her flesh.”
“She?” Tats asked in consternation.
“Sell her flesh?” Rapskal sounded horrified.
But Mercor didn’t reply to either comment or the murmur of words among the keepers that followed them. He had lowered his head to sniff again at the copper. He nudged her hard. She did not respond. As the dragon slowly swung his head to study all the keepers, his scales flashed in the sun. His eyes, gleaming black, were unreadable to Thymara. “Sylve. Stay beside me. The rest of you, go away. This does not concern you. It does not concern humans at all.”
Thymara could almost see the girl drawn to the dragon. His voice was compelling, deep as darkness and rich as cream. Sylve walked to him and leaned against him as if taking comfort and strength from him. She spoke shyly. “May Tats and Thymara stay? They have helped me care for Copper.”
“And me,” Rapskal announced, reckless as ever. “I should stay, too. I’m their friend.”
“Not now,” the dragon announced with finality. “There is nothing for them to do here. You stay to be with me. I’ll watch over this dragon.”
There was a subtle force to his words; Thymara felt not just dismissed but pushed, as if she were a child being ushered out of a sick room. Without deciding to do so, she turned and found herself walking away. “I have to check on Skymaw,” she explained to Tats, as if to excuse her departure.
“I felt it, too,” he whispered.
“Sintara.” Behind her, Mercor spoke the name. A shiver ran down Thymara’s spine, a sudden knowing she couldn’t deny. His rich voice vibrated through her. “The dragon you serve is named Sintara. I know her true name and I know she owes it to you. So have it.”
Thymara had halted in her tracks. Beside her, Tats paused, looking at her with a puzzled face. She felt as if her ears were blocked, her eyes dimmed. A storm raged somewhere, just beyond her senses. Sintara was not pleased with what Mercor had done, and she was letting him know it.
Mercor laughed humourlessly. “You can’t have it both ways, Sintara. The rest of us realized that right away. None of us have held back our names, save those poor souls who cannot remember that they have proper dragon names.”
Rash as always, Rapskal spoke into the pause. “Does Heeby have a dragon name?”
To Thymara’s surprise, the great gold dragon took the boy’s query seriously. “Heeby is now Heeby. She has made the name hers as you gave it to her. It remains to see if she will grow into it, or find herself limited by it.”
Thymara desperately wanted to ask about the injured silver dragon, but did not have the courage. Sometimes, she reflected, it might be easier to be Rapskal, without the sense to be frightened of anything.
Mercor had lowered his nose to the copper dragon. He gave her a nudge, then a stronger push. The copper didn’t move. Mercor lifted his head and regarded the fallen dragon with his bright black eyes. “We will have to remain here until she either rises or dies,” he announced. He looked around himself gravely and let his gaze stop on Greft. “Leave her alone here. I will be back shortly.” Then, “Come, Sylve,” he beckoned her, and strode off toward the water. His heavy clawed feet left deep tracks. Soon water would seep up to fill them.
Morning had come and grown strong. Alise could tell by the squares of sunlight that fell in her small chamber from the tiny windows set high in the wall. She tried again to muster her courage to leave her room, and once again sat down at her little desk instead. She had to go outside soon. She was hungry and thirsty and she needed to empty her chamber pot. Instead, she folded her arms on the desk in front of her and then rested her forehead on them. She stared into the small darkness her arms enclosed. “What am I going to do?” she asked herself. No easy answer came to her. Outside, the deckhands would soon be casting loose and pushing the barge off the muddy bank. Doubtless by now the dragons had set out and their keepers in their flotilla of small boats
