FOURTEEN
Sintara shouldered her way past Veras and seized the swampdeer carcass the green had been eyeing. The smaller female hissed around the meat that she gripped and made a halfhearted swipe at her. Sintara ignored her. She would not waste time fighting while there was food to be had. The meat that was being dumped from the relay of barrows was the most she had seen in months. All the dragons had converged on it, forming a half-circle of large, hungry creatures. She didn’t intend to stop eating until every last bit of it was gone. Then she would nap in the sun and digest. Let the humans flutter and squawk that it was time to leave; she’d leave when she was ready and not before.
She was surrounded by the sounds of feeding dragons. Bones crunched, meat tore, and dragons grunted as they raced to consume the most food. The larger dragons had pushed into the central area and claimed the largest pieces. The smaller dragons, shouldered to one side, had to be contented with birds, fish, and even rabbits.
It was when she tossed her head back to gulp down the front quarter of the swampdeer that she noticed the cluster of humans around one of the dragons. The dragon, a malformed silver, was trying to eat. He was ignoring the humans who had seized his tail and drawn it out to its unimpressive length. Apparently he was so hungry that nothing could distract him from his meal. Sintara would have dismissed the sight for a very similar reason if she had not noticed that two of the humans fussing over him belonged to her.
She swallowed and then gave a low rumble of displeasure. She considered interfering, but decided to continue feeding while she thought about it.
To her surprise, she had begun to enjoy the humans’ attention. It was flattering to have attendants, even if they were merely humans. They were so ignorant. They did not know how to praise her properly and had not brought her any gifts, but the younger one was acquiring some grooming skills. Last night Sintara had slept deeply, not waking even once to claw blood-sucking parasites from her nostrils and ears. The girl had brought her a fish, too, a large fish and fresh. And the Bingtown woman was at least attempting to address her with proper respect and flattery. Dragons, she reflected, were not so foolish as to be swayed by flattery, but it was pleasant to listen to compliments and endearments, and they did indicate that the human was adopting the proper deference.
It had pleased her, too, to be the only dragon with two attendants hovering round her. Now it seemed that both of them had defected to the mindless silver dragon, a prospect that was very distasteful to her. It had been pleasant to feel the vibrations of jealousy between the two women as they vied for her attention. Thymara had taken great pleasure in bringing her that fish, a pleasure that was rooted not only in serving the dragon but in serving her better than Alise could. Sintara had been looking forward to nudging them into sharper competition. She noted their current cooperation with displeasure, and felt insulted that they now seemed as solicitous of the silver dragon as they had been of her. Alise’s useless male companion had joined them as well.
Kalo had taken advantage of her distraction to sink his teeth into a goat carcass that had been closer to her than to him. Sintara hissed her displeasure and seized the other end of it. It was no great prize. It was nearly rotten and tore in half before she had even tugged at it. Kalo swallowed the piece he had stolen and observed, ‘You should teach your tender more respect or you’ll lose her.’
It was humiliating that he had noticed the girl’s defection. Sintara had been on the point of going after her and the other woman. Now her pride prevented her from doing that. ‘I don’t need a keeper,’ she informed him.
‘Of course not. None of us do. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t allow anyone to take mine from me. He’s very satisfactory. You have noticed, of course, that the leader of the humans has chosen me to tend. He says it is because they have recognized me as the leader of the dragons.’
‘Have they? How nice for you. What a pity that none of the dragons have!’ Quicker than a lizard’s blink, she shot her head out, seized a young riverpig carcass that had been right in front of him and dragged it over to her spot. He bristled at her, the half-formed spines of his mane trying to rise. ‘Pitiful,’ she commented quietly, as if she hadn’t intended him to hear it. She clamped her jaws on the pig, crushed it to a pulp and swallowed it whole. When it was down, she added, ‘One of the females who tends me is quite knowledgeable about both dragons and Elderlings, and highly respected in her city. She chose to come with us out of admiration for me. And she knows that when the dragons of the past did acknowledge one as a leader, it was always a queen. Like me.’
‘A queen like you? So, even then, there were dragons with no wings?’
‘I have teeth.’ She opened her jaws wide, reminding him.
Across the circle from them, Mercor slowly lifted his head. Since he had been cleaned, his gold scaling flashed in the sunlight. On the sides of his neck, a subtle mottling marked where he might have carried false-eyes in his serpent days. He was not as large as either of them, yet when he lifted his head, he radiated command. ‘No fighting,’ he said calmly, as if he had the right to regulate them. ‘Not today. Not when we are so close to leaving this place and beginning our journey back to what we were. To what we are meant to be.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded of him. Secretly, she was glad of the distraction. She had no desire to fight, not when there was food to eat.
Mercor met her gaze. His eyes were solid, gleaming black, like obsidian set into his eye sockets. She could read nothing there. ‘I mean, today we begin our journey back to Kelsingra. Search your memory, and perhaps you will understand.’
‘Kelsingra,’ Kalo retorted sceptically. Sintara suspected that he, too, was relieved that Mercor had spoken and diverted them from a fight. But he could not admit that, and so he turned his disdain on the golden male.
‘Kelsingra,’ Mercor agreed, and bent his head and snuffed the ground, searching for any remaining scraps of food. The humans had brought more than they usually did, perhaps as a farewell gift or perhaps to be rid of any surplus they’d been holding in reserve. Even so, the dragons had devoured it quickly, and Sintara knew that she was not the only one who remained hungry. She wished she could remember what it felt like to be full; in this life, she’d never known the sensation.
‘Kelsingra,’ Veras suddenly echoed Mercor, and around the circle, other dragons lifted their heads.
‘Kelsingra!’ Fente suddenly trumpeted and actually leapt, her front two legs leaving the ground. Her wings opened and flapped spasmodically and uselessly. She snapped them back to her body as if shamed.
‘Kelsingra!’ Both orange dragons chorused a response, as if the word brought them joy.
Mercor lifted his head, looked around at all of them and then said ponderously, ‘It is time to leave this place. For too long we have been kept here, corralled as humans corral meat animals. We have slept in the place they have left for us, eaten what they fed us, and accepted that we were doomed to these shadow lives. Dragons do not live like this, and I for one will not die like this. If die I must, I will die as a dragon. Let us go.’ Then he turned and headed toward the river shallows. For a time, all the dragons just watched him go. Then, without warning, some of the dragons began to follow him.
Sintara found herself trailing after them.
The gash in the silver dragon’s tail looked as if it had been made by another dragon’s claw. It had never been a clean cut; it looked more like a tear. Thymara wondered if it had been intentional or merely an accident during the daily scramble for
