Tintaglia abruptly wearied of the game. ‘I have no time for this. I need my Elderlings. Where did they go, old woman? I can tell that you know.’
Jani Khuprus just stared at her. Plainly she did not like to be exposed as a liar. The other humans behind her shifted and murmured to one another.
‘Half my damn boat’s smashed!’ A man’s voice.
Tintaglia turned her head slowly; she knew how sudden movements could wake pain. The man striding toward her was big, as humans went, and he carried a long, hooked pole. It was some sort of boatman’s tool but he carried it as if it might be a weapon. ‘Dragon!’ He roared the word at her. ‘What are you going to do to make it good?’
He brandished the object in a way that made it clear he intended to threaten her. Ordinarily, it would not have concerned her; she doubted it would penetrate her thickest scaling. It would only do damage if he found a tender spot. Such as her wound. She moved deliberately to face him, hoping he would not realize that her slowness was due to weakness rather than disdain for him.
‘Make it good?’ she asked snidely. ‘If you had “made it good” in the first place, it would not have shattered so easily. There is nothing I can do to “make it good” for you. I can, however, make it much worse for you.’ She opened her jaws wide, showing him her venom sacs, but he obviously thought that she threatened to eat him. He stumbled back from her, his pike all but forgotten in his hand. When he thought he was a safe distance, he shouted, ‘This is your fault, Jani Khuprus! You and your kin, those “Elderlings” are the ones who brought the dragons here! Much good they did us!’
Tintaglia could almost see the fury rise in the old woman. She advanced on the man, heedless that it brought her within range of the dragon. ‘Much good? Yes, much good, if you count keeping the Chalcedeans out of our river! I’m sorry your boat was damaged, Yulden, but don’t throw the blame on me, or mock my children.’
‘It’s the dragon’s fault, not Jani’s!’ A woman’s voice from back in the crowd. ‘Drive the dragon away! Send her off to join the others!’
‘Yes!’
‘You’ll get no meat from us, dragon! Get out of here!’
‘We’ve had enough of your kind here. Be off!’
Tintaglia stared at them incredulously. Had they forgotten all they’d ever known of dragons? That she could, with one acid-laden breath, melt the flesh from their bones?
Then, from back in the crowd, the pole came flying. It was the trunk of a sapling, or a branch stripped of twigs, but it had been thrown at her as if it were a spear. It struck her, a feeble blow, and bounced off her hide. Ordinarily, it would not even have hurt, but any jarring movement hurt now. She snapped her head on her long neck to face her attacker, and that hurt even more. For an instant, she began to rise on her hind legs and spread her wings, to terrify these vermin with her size before spitting a mist of venom that would engulf them all. She resisted that reflex just in time: she must not bare the tender flesh beneath her wings and above all she must not let her attackers see her injury. Instead, she drew her head back and felt the glands in her throat swell in readiness.
‘TINTAGLIA!’
The sound of her name froze her. Not for the first time, she cursed the moment that Reyn Khuprus had so callously gifted the humans gathered in Bingtown with her name. Since then, all humans seemed to know it, and use every opportunity to bind her with it.
It was the old woman, of course, Jani Khuprus, moving in a stumbling run to put herself between the dragon and the mob. Behind her, her shrieking daughter was held back by the others. She halted, swaying, in front of the dragon and threw up her skinny arms as if they could shield something.
‘Tintaglia, by your name, remember the promises between us! You pledged to help us, to protect us from the Chalcedean invaders, and we in turn cared for the serpents that hatched into dragons! You cannot harm us now!’
‘You have attacked me!’ The dragon was outraged that Jani Khuprus dared to rebuke her.
‘You wrecked my boat!’ The man with the boat hook.
‘You’ve destroyed half the dock!’
Tintaglia turned her head slowly, shocked to find how careless she had been. There were other humans behind her, humans who had come out of the damaged boats and from the shattered docks. Many of them carried items that were not weapons, but could be used as such. She still had no doubt that she could kill them all before they did her serious harm, but harm they could do in such tight quarters. The trees that leaned over her would prevent an easy launch, even if she were not injured. Abruptly, she realized that she was in a very bad situation. There were other humans, looking down on her from platforms and walkways, and some were moving down the stairways that wound around the immense trunks of the trees.
‘Dragon!’
She swung her attention back to the old woman. ‘You should leave,’ Jani Khuprus cried out in a low voice. Tintaglia heard fear in it, but also a pleading. Did she fear what would happen if the dragon had to defend herself?
‘You should follow the rest of your kind, and their keepers who are turning into Elderlings. Go to Kelsingra, dragon! That is where you belong. Not here!’
‘Elderlings. In Kelsingra? I have been there. The city is empty.’
‘Perhaps it was, but no longer. The other dragons have gone there, and the rumour is that the keepers who went with them are becoming Elderlings. Elderlings such as you seek.’
Something in the old woman’s voice … no. In her thoughts. Tintaglia focused on her alone.
‘It won’t be long now,’ Leftrin said, and felt vast relief at being able to utter the words. He stood on the roof of the deckhouse. The wintry day was winding down to an early close, but he had sighted the first buildings of Kelsingra. They were nearly home, he thought, and then chuckled. Home? Kelsingra? No. Home was where Alise was now, that was clear for him.
The journey had been long but not nearly as long as his first trip to Kelsingra. This time he had not been slowed by the need to hold his boat to the pace of plodding dragons, nor to stop early every night so that the hunters might bring meat for the dragons and the keepers could rest their weary bodies. Nor had they wasted days in a shallow swamp trying almost in vain to find their way back to the true course. But even so, the thin wailing of the sickly infant had made each day seem to last a week. He was sure he was not the only one to have been unable to sleep through Phron’s colicky cries. Looking at Reyn’s gaunt face and bloodshot eyes, he knew that the baby’s father had shared his unwilling vigil.
‘That’s Kelsingra? That scatter of buildings?’ Reyn seemed incredulous.
‘No. That’s the beginning of the outskirts. It’s a big city, and it sprawls along the riverbank and maybe extends up into those foothills. With the leaves off the trees, I can see that it’s even bigger than I thought it was.’