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With a roar, the animal spun to confront him.

Reyn was carried along on his spear, his feet dragging in the sand.

He barely managed to keep a grip on his sharpened stake.

It now looked as effective as a handful of daisies, but it was the only weapon he had.

For a stride, he managed to get his feet under him.

He used his thrust to push the spear deeper.

The animal bellowed again, blood starting from its mouth now as well as flying from its nostrils.

He would win. Through the shaft of the spear, he could feel its strength waning.

Then another sea bullock seized a great mouthful of his cloak and jerked him off his feet.

He lost his grip on the spear, and as he went down, the wounded animal turned on him.

Its big dull tusks suddenly looked sharp and powerful as it lunged at Reyn, jaws wide.

He rolled clear of the attack, but that wrapped his cloak around him.

He fought his sharpened stick clear of the entrapping fabric, and then jerked his foot away from the snapping jaws.

He tried to stand up, but the other animal still gripped a corner of his cloak.

It threw its head from side to side, jerking Reyn to his knees.

Other sea bullocks were closing in swiftly.

Reyn tried to tear free of his cloak and flee, but the knots defied him.

Somehow he had lost his sharpened stake.

Another animal butted him, slamming him into the bullock that still gripped his cloak.

He had a brief glimpse of his prey sprawling dead on the sand. Much good that did him now.

Tintaglia’s shrill ki-i-i split the winter sky. Without releasing his cloak, the animal that held it twisted its head to stare up at the sky. An instant later, the entire herd was in a humping gallop towards the water. Reyn was dragged along, his cloak snagged on the sea bullock’s tusks.

When the dragon hit the bullock, Reyn thought his neck would snap.

They skidded through the sand together, the sea bullock squealing with amazing shrillness as Tintaglia’s jaws closed on its neck.

With a single bite, she half-severed its head from its thick shoulders.

The head, Reyn’s cloak still clutched in its jaws, sagged to one side of the twitching body under Tintaglia’s hind feet.

Dazed, he crawled towards it and unsnagged his cloak from its tusks.

‘Mine!’ roared Tintaglia, darting her head at him menacingly. ‘My kill! My food! Get away from it.’

As he stumbled hastily away, she lowered her jaws over the animal’s belly. A single bite and she lifted her head, to snap up and gulp down the dangling entrails. A waft of gut stench drifted over Reyn. She swallowed. ‘My meat!’ she warned him again, and lowered her head for another bite.

‘There’s another one over there. You can eat him, too,’ Reyn told her.

He waved a hand at the sea bullock with the spear in it.

He collapsed onto the sand, and finally succeeded in undoing the ties of his cloak.

Snatching it off, he threw it down in disgust. What ever had made him think he could hunt?

He was a digger, a thinker, an explorer. Not a hunter.

Tintaglia had frozen, a dripping mouthful of entrails dangling from her jaws. She stared at him, the silver of her eyes glistening. Then she threw her head back, snapped down her mouthful and demanded, ‘I can eat your kill? That is what you said?’

‘I killed it for you. You don’t think I could eat an animal that size, do you?’

She turned her head as if he were something she had never seen before. ‘Frankly, I was amazed that you could kill one. I thought you must have been very hungry to try.’

‘No. It’s for you. You said you were hungry. Though maybe I could take some of the meat with me for tomorrow.’ Perhaps by then the sight of her feeding and the smell of blood would not seem so disgusting.

She turned her head sideways to shear off most of the sea bullock’s neck hump. She chewed twice, and swallowed. ‘You meant it for me? When you killed it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what do you want from me in return?’ she asked guardedly.

‘Nothing more than what we’ve already agreed upon: help me find Malta. I saw that you wouldn’t find much game here. We’d travel better if you were well fed. That is all I was thinking.’

‘Indeed.’

He could not read her odd inflection. He limped over to the animal he had killed and managed on his third effort, to pull out the spear. He recovered his knife, cleaned it off and put it back in its sheath.

Tintaglia ate her kill down to a collapse of bones before she began on his.

Reyn watched in a sort of awe. He had not dreamed her belly could hold that much.

Halfway through his kill, she slowed her famished devouring.

Jaws and claws, she seized what remained of the carcass and dragged it up the beach out of reach of the incoming tide and adjacent to his fire.

Without a word, she curled herself protectively around the carcass and fell into a deep sleep.

Reyn awoke shivering in full dark. The chill and damp of the night had penetrated his misused cloak and his fire had died to coals.

He replenished it and found himself suddenly hungry.

He tiptoed past the curl of Tintaglia’s tail and hunched over the chewed carcass in the darkness.

While he was still trying to find some meat that was unmarred by the dragon’s teeth and saliva, she opened one huge eye.

She regarded him without surprise. ‘I left you both front flippers,’ she told him, and then closed her eyes again.

He suspected she had portioned him the least appetizing part of the animal, but he cut off both platter-sized limbs.

The fat, pink, hairless flippers with their dulled black claws did little to tempt his appetite, but he speared one on a stick and propped the meat over his fire.

In a short time, the savoury smell of fat meat cooking filled the night.

By the time it was cooked, his stomach was rumbling his hunger.

The fat was crisp and dripping, and the meat of the reduced digits was as flavourful as anything he’d ever eaten.

He put the other flipper to cook before he’d finished eating the first one.

Tintaglia woke, snuffing, just as he took the second fin from the fire. ‘Do you want some?’ he asked reluctantly.

‘Scarcely!’ she replied with some humour.

As he ate the second flipper, she finished off the rest of the animal.

She ate in a more leisurely manner now and her enjoyment was obvious.

Reyn nibbled the last meat from the bones and tossed them into the embers of the fire.

He washed the grease from his hands in the icy lap of the waves.

When he returned, he built up the fire against the deepening chill of the night.

Tintaglia sighed contentedly and stretched out, her belly towards the fire.

Reyn, seated between the dragon and the fire, found himself cradled in stupefying warmth.

He lay on top of his cloak and closed his eyes.

‘You are different to what I expected humans to be,’ Tintaglia observed.

‘You are not what I thought a dragon would be,’ he replied. He heaved a sigh of satiation. ‘We’ll fly at first light?’

‘Of course. Though if I had my choice, I’d stay here and pick off a few more of those sea bullocks.’

‘You can’t still be hungry.’

‘Not now. But one should always have a care for the morrow.’

For a time, silence hovered between them. Then Reyn had to ask, ‘Will you grow even larger than you are now?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I just thought … well, you seem very large now. How big do dragons get?’

‘While we live, we grow. So it depends on how long one lives.’

‘How long do you expect to live?’

She gave a snort of amusement. ‘As long as I can. How long do you expect to live?’

‘Well … eighty years would be a good, long life. But few Rain Wilders last that long.’ He tried to confront his own mortality. ‘My father died when he was 43. If I am fortunate, I hope to have another score of years. Enough to have children and see them past their childhood.’

‘A mere sneeze of time.’ Tintaglia stretched negligently. ‘I suspect that your years will stretch far longer than that, now that you have journeyed with a dragon.’

‘Do you mean it will just seem that way?’ Reyn asked, attempting levity at her confusing words.

‘No. Not at all. Do you know nothing? Do you think a few scales or bronze eyes are all a dragon can share with her companion? As you take on more of my characteristics, your years will stretch out as well. I would not be surprised to see you pass the century mark, and still keep the use of your limbs. At least, so it was with the Elderlings. Some of them reached three and four centuries. But of course, those ones had generations of dragon-touch to draw on. You may not live so long, but your children likely will.’

Reyn sat up, suddenly wide awake. ‘Are you teasing me?’

‘Of course not. Why would I?’

‘Nothing. I just…I am not sure I wish to live that long.’ He was silent for a time.

He imagined watching his mother and older brother die.

That was tolerable; one expected to see one’s parents die.

But what if he had to watch Malta grow old and die?

What if they had children, and he had to see them, too, become feeble and fade while he himself remained able and alert?

An extended lifetime seemed a dubious reward for the doubtful honour of being a dragon’s companion.

He spoke his next thought aloud. ‘I’d give all the years I hope to see for a single one assured with Malta. ’