Ship of Destiny. Робин Хобб

his back uncomfortably, but they did not pierce him. She clutched them both to her breast as a squirrel treasures a nut it has found. Selden gave an involuntary cry as she crouched on those tremendous hind legs, and she bounded skyward.

      Her blue wings beat and they rose steadily. The trees closed below them. Reyn twisted his neck and got a dizzying view of treetops below him. His stomach lurched, but in the next instant his heart swelled with wonder. He almost forgot his fear in this perilous new aspect of the world. Green and swelling, the Rain Forest Valley unfurled itself far below them. Up and up the dragon carried them in a widening gyre that afforded him glimpses of the open river winding through the lush growth. The river, he saw, was a paler grey than usual. Sometimes, after large quakes, it ran white and acid for days and anyone out in a boat had best be mindful of his craft. When the river ran white, it ate wood swiftly. The dragon tipped her wings and they swung inland and upriver. Then he caught both sight and scent of Trehaug. Seen from above, the city hung throughout the tree branches like decorative lanterns. The smoke of cookfires rose in the still air.

      ‘That’s it!’ He cried the words aloud to the dragon’s unspoken question, and then realized he needn’t have vocalized it at all. Held this close to her, their old bond had reasserted itself. He felt a chill moment of foreboding, but then sensed her sardonic reply: he needn’t worry. Further involvement with humans held no place in her plans.

      He was almost grateful for his empty stomach as they descended in dizzying spirals. He caught whirling glimpses of city and river as they came down, including a brief sighting of pointing and shouting figures that scattered before them. He sensed her disgust that there was no wide, flat space prepared for a dragon to land. What sort of a city was this?

      They landed joltingly on the city docks. The platforms, free to rise and fall with the changing flow of the river, gave way to the impact. White spray flew up from the edges of the wharf, causing the nearby Kendry to rock alarmingly. The liveship roared his bewilderment. As the dock rose, rocking under the dragon’s weight, Tintaglia opened her claws. Reyn and Selden fell at her feet. She swivelled aside from them to let her forepaws drop to the wood beside them. ‘Now you will live,’ she asserted.

      ‘Now…we will…live,’ Reyn panted. Selden lay like a stunned rabbit.

      Reyn became aware of the thundering of footsteps and the excited susurrus of hushed conversation. He lifted his gaze. A veritable tide of people was flooding onto the piers. Many were begrimed with the mud of long digging. All looked weary despite the amazement on their faces. Some few gripped excavating tools as if they were weapons. All halted at the end of the dock. The incredulous shouts rose to a confused roar as folk gawked and pointed at Tintaglia. Reyn glimpsed his mother elbowing her way through the crowd. When she reached the front row of awed onlookers, she alone stepped free of the crowd and advanced cautiously towards the dragon. Then she saw him, and lost all interest in the towering beast.

      ‘Reyn?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Reyn!’ Her voice broke on his name. ‘And you are alive? Praise Sa!’ She ran to him and knelt by him.

      He reached up to grip her hand. ‘She lives,’ he said. ‘I was right. The dragon is alive.’

      Before she could speak, a long wail interrupted them. Reyn saw Keffria break free of the clustered onlookers and race along the wharf to Selden. She knelt by him, and then gathered her boy up in her arms. ‘Oh, thank Sa, he lives. But what of Malta? Where is Malta, where is my daughter?’

      Reyn spoke the difficult words. ‘I did not find her. I fear she perished in the city.’

      Like a rising wind, the cry rose from Keffria’s throat until it was a piercing scream of denial. ‘No, no, no!’ she wailed. Selden paled in her grip. The features of the tough little boy who had been Reyn’s companion during their ordeal suddenly quivered into a child’s face again. He added his sobs to her wailing.

      ‘Mama, Mama, don’t cry, don’t cry!’ He tugged at her but could not gain her attention.

      ‘The one you call Malta isn’t dead,’ the dragon interrupted sharply. ‘Stop this caterwauling and cease your emotional wallowing.’

      ‘Not dead?’ Reyn exclaimed.

      His words were echoed by Selden. He seized his wailing mother and shook her. ‘Mama, listen, didn’t you hear what the dragon said? She said Malta is not dead. Stop crying, Malta isn’t dead.’ He turned a shining gaze on Tintaglia. ‘You can trust the dragon. When she carried me, I could feel her wisdom right through my skin!’

      Behind them on the docks, a rising chorus of talk drowned out Selden’s words. Some folk were exclaiming in wonder. ‘She spoke!’ ‘The dragon spoke!’ ‘Did you hear that?’ Some nodded in surprised agreement, while others demanded to know what their friends meant. ‘I heard nothing.’ ‘It snorted, that was all.’

      Tintaglia’s silver eyes greyed with disgust. ‘Their minds are too small even to speak to mine. Humans!’ She limbered her long neck. ‘Stand clear, Reyn Khuprus. I am done with you and your kind now. My bond is fulfilled.’

      ‘No! Wait!’ Reyn jerked free of his mother’s clutch on his arm. Boldly he gripped the clawed tip of Tintaglia’s gleaming wing. ‘You cannot go yet. You said Malta still lives. But where is she? How do you know she lives? Is she safe?’

      Tintaglia twitched her wing tip effortlessly free of him. ‘We were linked for a time, as well you know, Reyn Khuprus. Therefore, I retain some small awareness of her. As to where she is, I know not, save that she floats on water. On the river, I surmise, from the fear she feels. She is hungry and thirsty, but not otherwise injured that I can tell.’

      Reyn fell to his knees before the dragon. ‘Take me to her. I beg you. I will be forever in your debt if you will but do this one thing for me.’

      Amusement flickered over the dragon’s face. He knew it in the swift swirling of her eye colours, and the small flaring of her nostrils. ‘I have no need of your service, human. And your company bores me. Fare well.’ She lifted her wings and began to open them. ‘Stand clear of me, if you would not be knocked down.’

      Instead, Reyn sprang towards her. Her sleekly-scaled body afforded no purchase to his scrabbling hands. He flung himself at her foreleg and wrapped his arms around it as if he were a child clinging to his mother. But his words were full of force and fury. ‘You cannot go, Tintaglia Dragon! Not and leave Malta to die. You know she did as much to free you as I did. She opened herself to the memories of the city. She discovered the secret catches that would open the great wall. But for her seeking you out, I would not have come into the city amidst the quakes. You would be buried even now! You cannot turn your back on such a debt! You cannot.’

      Behind him, he was aware of garbled questions and conversation among his mother and Selden and Keffria. He didn’t care what they overheard; he didn’t care what the boy told them. Right now, all he could think of was Malta. ‘The river runs white,’ he went on to the dragon. ‘White water eats boats. If she is on the river on a log or raft, the water will devour it and then her. She will die, because she ventured into the city to try to save you.’

      The dragon’s eyes spun silver flecked with scarlet, so great was her anger. She snorted a hot blast of breath that nearly knocked him down. Then with a single forepaw she snatched him up as if he were a doll stuffed with sawdust. Her talons closed painfully around his chest. He could barely take a breath.

      ‘Very well, insect!’ she hissed. ‘I will help you find her. But after that, I have finished with you and yours. For whatever good you and she may have done me, your kin have committed great wrongs against all my kind.’ She lifted him and thrust him towards the liveship. Kendry stared at them, and his face was that of a dying man. ‘Do not think I do not know! Pray that I forget! Pray that after this day, you never see me again!’

      He could not take a breath to reply, nor did she wait for words from him. With a mighty leap, she sprang upwards. The sudden lurch of the dock knocked down those who had ventured onto it. Reyn heard his mother’s shriek of horror as the dragon bore him away. Then all sound was driven from his ears by the swift wind of their ascent.