LITMIR.BIZ

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to have more significance to you. The dragons will take command of their own fates. And probably ours as well.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      Now she looked at him, a direct look with her brows raised as if startled that he did not immediately grasp what she had told him. ‘I mean that dragons will rule the world again. As they used to.’

      ‘As they used to?’ Tats echoed her words as he followed her toward the riverbank. It had become a new habit for all of them; the keepers and the flightless dragons gathered in the morning on the riverbank to discuss the day’s tasks. He glanced around and for a moment was seized by the beauty of the scene. The keepers were gleaming figures in the fleeting morning mist, for all wore their Elderling garments daily now. Their dragons were scattered across the hillside and along the bank. They were limbering their wings, beating them hard against the meadow grass or stretching out necks and legs. They, too, gleamed brilliantly against the dew-heavy grasses of the wet meadow. At the bottom of the hill, Carson had given over his efforts with Spit and waited for them, Sedric at his side.

      The leadership had evolved, Tats realized. For all Rapskal’s charismatic speech when he had returned from Kelsingra, he had not assumed the command as Tats had thought he might. Probably because he was not interested in being a leader. He was handsome and cheerful, beloved by his fellows, but most of them spoke of him with a fond smile rather than deep respect. Rapskal remained as odd as he had always been, introspective one moment and bizarrely social the next. And happy with whom he was. The ambition that would have burned inside Tats was not even a spark to him.

      Carson was by years the oldest of those who had taken on a dragon. It seemed natural to cede authority to him, and the hunter did not shirk from it. For the most part, Carson assigned the daily tasks to the keepers, a few to groom and otherwise tend to the remaining dragons, and the rest of them to hunt or fish. If a keeper protested that he had a different task in mind that day, Carson did not let it become an issue. He recognized their individuality and did not attempt to impose his authority on them. As a result, all seemed to accept it.

      Alise had quietly claimed some of the menial but necessary tasks of daily living. She tended the smoking racks that preserved fish and meat for them, gathered edible greens and helped groom the dragons. Sylve, never the most successful hunter, had turned her energies to the preparation of meals. At Carson’s suggestion, the keepers had returned to large shared meals. It was strange but nice to return to the communal meals and talk they had shared when they were moving the dragons upriver.

      It made him feel a bit less lonely.

      ‘As they used to, and will again,’ Alise continued. She glanced over at him. ‘Seeing them in flight, watching all of you change … it puts a different light on all that I discovered in the course of my early studies. Dragons were the centre of the Elderling civilizations, with humans a separate population that lived apart from them, in settlements like the ones we found here. Humans raised crops and cattle which they traded to Elderlings in exchange for their wondrous goods. Look at the city across the river, Tats, and ask yourself, how did they feed themselves?’

      ‘Well, there were herds on the outskirts of the cities. Probably places to grow crops …’

      ‘Probably. But humans were the ones to do that. Elderlings gave themselves and their lives over to their magic, and to tending the dragons. All they did and built and created was not for themselves, but for the dragons who overshadowed them.’

      ‘Ruled them? The dragons ruled them?’ He wasn’t enjoying the images in his mind.

      ‘“Ruled” isn’t quite the right word. Does Fente rule you?’

      ‘Of course not!’

      ‘And yet you gave your days over to hunting for her, and grooming her and otherwise caring for her.’

      ‘But I wanted to do those things.’

      Alise smiled. ‘And that is why “ruled” is the wrong word. Charmed? Englamoured? I’m not sure quite how to express it, but you do already know what I mean. If these dragons breed and bring more of their kind into the world, then inevitably they will end up running the world for their own benefit.’

      ‘That sounds so selfish!’

      ‘Does it? Isn’t it what humans have done for generations? We claim the land as ours and turn it to our purposes. We change the channels of rivers and the face of the land so that we can travel by boat or grow a crop or graze cattle. And we think it only natural that we should shape the whole world to be comfortable and yielding for humankind. Why should dragons be any different in how they perceive the world?’

      Tats was quiet for a time.

      ‘It may not be a bad thing at all,’ Alise observed into his silence. ‘Maybe humans will lose some of their pettiness if they have dragons to contend with. Ah, look! Is that Ranculos? I would not have believed it possible!’

      The huge scarlet dragon was in the air. He was not graceful. His tail was still too skinny, and his hindquarters flimsy for his size. Tats was about to observe that he was only gliding after a launch from a higher point, but at that moment the dragon’s wings began to beat heavily, and what had been a glide turned into laboured flight as he gained altitude.

      Tats became aware of Harrikin. The tall slender keeper was racing down the hillside, almost in his dragon’s shadow. As Ranculos beat his wings and rose upward, Harrikin cried out, ‘Ware your course! Bank, bank your wings left! Not over the river, Ranculos! Not over the river!’

      His cry was thin and breathless, and Tats doubted that the huge dragon heard him at all. If he did, he paid him no mind. Perhaps he was full of exhilaration; or perhaps he had decided to fly or die trying.

      The red dragon lumbered into the sky, his hind legs dangling and twitching as he tried to pull them up into alignment with the rest of his body. Some of the other keepers were adding their voices to Harrikin’s now. ‘Too soon, Ranculos, too soon!’

      ‘Come back! Circle back!’

      The red dragon ignored them. His laboured efforts carried him farther and farther from the shore. The steady beat of his wings became an uneven flapping.

      ‘What is he doing? What is he thinking?’

      ‘Silence!’ A trumpeted blast of sound and thought from Mercor quenched them all. ‘Watch!’ he commanded both humans and dragons.

      Ranculos hung suspended, wings wide now. His uncertainty was plain. He tipped and teetered as he began a wide circle, losing altitude as he did so. Then, as if realizing that he was closer to Kelsingra than the village, he resumed his course. But his weariness was evident now. His body drooped between his wings. The intersection of dragon and river became both obvious and inevitable.

      ‘No-o-o-o!’ Harrikin’s low cry was a sound of agony. He stood stiffly, hands clutching at his face, his nails sinking into his cheeks as he stared. Ranculos’s glide carried him farther and farther from the village. Below him, the grey river’s greedy current raced relentlessly. Sylve gave Mercor a cautious glance, and then ran to stand beside Harrikin. Lecter plodded down the hillside toward his foster-brother, his broad shoulders slumped as if he shared Harrikin’s desperation and already knew the outcome.

      Ranculos began to beat his wings, not steadily but in panic. Their uneven rhythm tipped and tilted him. He fluttered like a fledgling fallen too soon from the nest. His destination was the far side of the river but despite his battle with the air, all knew he could not attain it. Once, twice, thrice his wingtips scored white on the river’s face and then his drooping hind legs snagged in the current and the waters snatched him from the sky, pinwheeling him wide-winged into the greyness. He slapped his wings uselessly against the water. Then he sank. The river smoothed over the spot where he had fallen as if he had never been.

      ‘Ranculos! Ranculos!’ Harrikin’s voice went shrill and childish as he fell slowly to his knees. All eyes watched the river, hoping for what could not be. Nothing disturbed the rushing waters. Harrikin stared, straining toward the water. His hands went into fists

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