Page 523 of The Liveship Traders Trilogy

‘Stop.’ The word was as much command as plea.

Malta pushed herself ponderously to her feet.

She moved as if she were made of separate pieces, none of which fit together very well.

Her eyes were flat. She picked up her headwrap from the table, looked at it, then let it fall from her fingers.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her voice was distant, impartial.

‘This is who I am now. But…’ She let her thought die away.

She walked towards the door as if she were entirely alone.

As she passed through it, Jek held it wide for her.

The Six Duchies woman gave Althea a quizzical look. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Of course,’ Althea murmured. She suddenly grasped what her mother must have felt down the years, wanting good things for her daughters, but so powerless to make them go well. It was a sickening feeling.

‘Halt! What about me? You cannot leave me here, unattended.’ The Satrap protested angrily.

‘Well, hustle along then, little man, or be left behind,’ Jek told him. But she did hold the door for him, Althea noted.

Kennit stared up, aware that he gaped but unable to do anything about it.

He was dimly aware that Vivacia gazed upwards also, her hands clasped before her bosom as if she prayed.

Beside him, Wintrow did pray, not a prayer for mercy, as Kennit might have expected, but instead a joyful flow of words that celebrated the wonder of Sa.

The boy sounded as if he were chanting in a trance.

‘The wonder, the glory is yours, Creator Sa…’ He could not tell if Wintrow mouthed familiar words or if the majesty of the creature above them had spurred him to spontaneous worship.

The dragon circled again, blue scales glinting to silver as the winter sunlight ran along its flanks.

Again, it gave cry. When the dragon spoke, Kennit felt Vivacia’s response.

A terrible deep yearning ran through the ship and infected him.

She longed to move that freely through the sky, to soar, and dip, and circle at her own pleasure.

It put the ship in mind of all she was not, and never would be again. Despair like poison seeped through her.

The serpents had ceased their attack on the Jamaillian ships and swarmed in the open sea.

Some were near-motionless, heads raised high, great eyes spinning as they stared aloft.

Others frolicked and cavorted as if their antics could attract the dragon’s attention.

The Jamaillian fleet had seized this opportunity.

From certain death, they grasped at survival.

One smaller vessel was sinking, her decks awash.

Her crew was abandoning her for another ship.

On other decks, men sought to make order out of chaos and disaster.

They cut fallen rigging free and threw canvas overboard.

Yet even there, despite all they had endured, men shouted and pointed at the dragon as their ships retreated.

In the boat that Sorcor had dispatched, Etta crouched low. Her gaze darted from the cavorting serpents to the circling dragon. Her face was pale, her eyes fixed on Kennit. The men in the boat with her pulled savagely at the oars, their heads hunched down between their shoulders.

On every circling pass, the dragon swooped lower.

Unmistakably, Vivacia was at the centre of its gyre.

It clasped something in its front legs, Kennit saw.

Prey, perhaps, but he could not make out what it was.

Was it sizing up the ship before an attack?

Would it land on the water like a gull? It swept past yet again, so close that the gust of its wings buffeted the ship’s sails and set her to rocking.

The sea serpents set up an ungodly ululation that rose in volume and pitch as the dragon descended.

Then, as it passed right over Etta’s rowing boat, the dragon let its burden drop.

Whatever it was narrowly missed hitting the boat; it landed beside it in a gout of water.

With a ponderous flapping of wings, the creature rose laboriously.

It roared and the serpents clamoured an answer.

Then it flew away, much more slowly than it had come.

The serpents followed it. Like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind, they trailed after the dragon.

The swift led the way, while others hummocked painfully through the water in the foaming wake, but all were leaving.

The dragon gave a final, drawn-out cry as it flew away, taking Kennit’s triumph with it.

It was a man, and he was alive. Etta had a single, astonishing glimpse of him as he plummeted into the water.

His legs kicked wildly as he fell, then the splash of his impact swallowed him.

The dragon had dropped him so near the boat that he had nearly swamped it.

Etta would have sworn it was deliberate.

The boat rocked wildly in the surge of his dive.

Despite that, she seized the edge of the boat and leaned over the side, looking after him.

Would he drown? Would he come up at all?

‘Where is he?’ she shouted. ‘Watch for him to come up!’

But the men in the boat paid no attention to her. The serpents were flowing away with the retreating dragon. They seized the opportunity to make all speed for the Vivacia. On the main deck, amidst pointing and babbling crewmen, both Kennit and Wintrow stared after the dragon.

Only the figurehead shared Etta’s concern. Vivacia gave one last, anguished look after the dragon. There her eyes, too, scanned the waters around the small boat. Etta was still the first to see a pale movement under the waves and she pointed, crying, ‘There, there he is!’

But the creature that shot gasping to the surface of the water was not a man.

He had the shape of a man, but his staring eyes gleamed copper.

His dark wet curls, streaming water, reminded her of tangled kelp.

He saw the boat, and strained towards it with a reaching hand, but Etta saw that his hand shone with more than wet.

He was scaled. With a bubbling cry, he sank again.

The rowers who had seen him roared with dismay and leaned into their task.

Etta was left transfixed, staring at the place where he went down.

‘Take him up! Please!’ A girl’s voice shrieked. Etta lifted her eyes to an elegantly garbed girl on the deck. Why, the Satrap’s Companion looked no older than Wintrow!

Then Vivacia pointed a large and commanding finger at the water. ‘There! There, you fools, he comes up again! Quickly, quickly, take him up!’

Panicked as they were, the rowers had ignored Etta’s plea, but the figurehead’s command was another matter.

White-faced, they slacked their oars. Then, as the man bobbed up again, they dug their oars in to spin the boat towards him.

He saw them and reached desperately. He tried to claw his way towards them, but went under.

‘That’s it for him,’ one of the rowers predicted, but an instant later grasping hands broke the surface of the water.

His drowning white face appeared and Etta heard him gasp for breath.

A rower thrust an oar within his reach. He seized it so strongly he nearly tore it from the man’s grip.

They pulled him closer to the boat. In another moment, he had managed to seize the side.

He could do no more than cling there. It took two men to haul him on board.

When they had him in, he lay in the bottom, water streaming from his garments.

He gagged. When he snorted his nose clear of seawater, blood followed it.

He blinked his inhuman eyes up at Etta. At first, he did not appear to see her.

Then he mouthed silent words. ‘Thank you.’ His head fell to one side and his eyes closed.