Robin Hobb - Ship of Destiny

A scant year ago, Malta had turned her wiles on Brashen. In her words, he heard her girlish cunning matured into genuine diplomacy. Some of the nobles exchanged looks, impressed with her words. Even the Satrap seemed pleased with her, nodding to her words as if she but spoke aloud his own thoughts.

Malta clapped her hands to her ears before Reyn heard the sound. When it broke into his hearing range, he flinched with her. The others looked about wildly, while one Jamaillian lord wailed, "The serpents return!"

"No. It's Tintaglia," Reyn replied. Anxiety clutched him. The dragon cried for help as she came. He moved toward the door, and everyone else at the table rose and followed him. Malta seized his hand as they emerged onto the deck. Together, they stared up into the downpour. Tintaglia swept over them, a pale gleaming of silver and blue against the overcast night sky. Her wings beat heavily. She swung in a wide circle, then gave cry again. To Reyn's amazement, her call was answered. The ship's deck hummed with the force of Vivacia's reply. A deeper call from Paragon echoed hers.

Malta was frozen, looking up in awe. An instant after the sound died, she met Reyn's eyes with a question. "She asks for help?"

Reyn snorted. "No. She demands our help. Tintaglia seldom 'asks' for anything." His heart sank despite his callous words. They had grown too close for her to conceal her fear from him. He felt both her weariness and the deep grief in her soul.

"I did not understand all of it." Malta added, "I am shocked that I understood any of it."

Reyn replied in a low voice, "The longer you are around her, the more clear it comes to your mind. I think our ears have little to do with it." The dragon's vocalizations shook the skies again. All around them, sailors either craned to look at the beast or cowered under shelter. Reyn stared up, heedless of the rain that pelted his face. He spoke loud to be heard through the answering cries of the ships.

"The dragon is exhausted. She flies too swiftly for the serpents to keep up with her. She has had to constantly circle to match her pace to theirs. She has not hunted or fed, for she has feared to leave her serpents. When they encountered a Chalcedean ship, it attacked her. She was not injured badly but the serpents rose against the ship." He took a breath. "They knew how to kill serpents. Archers killed six of the tangle before they sank the ship." The outrage and sorrow of the liveship rose through them. "The tangle rests for the night, but she has returned to ask our aid." He turned beseechingly to the captains. "Darkness caught her on the wing. She needs a sandy beach to land on — or any beach, with a fire to guide her in."

Sorcor spoke suddenly. "Would muck do? It's slippery, but softer than rock."

"Stink Island," Etta confirmed.

"It's not far," Red added. "She probably flies over it each time she circles. Bad place for a ship, though. Shallow water."

"But you can run a boat up on it." Etta dismissed this problem. "And there's lots of driftwood there for a fire."

"We need to get there. Now." Reyn glanced up anxiously at the sky. "If we do not hurry, the ocean will claim her. She is at the end of her strength."

The wet driftwood would not kindle. While Reyn struggled with tinder that the wind kept claiming, Malta took off her cloak and stuffed it into the tangle of wood. He looked up to the sudden crash as she smashed their lantern onto the pile. A moment later, flames licked up the edges of her cloak. He feared the fire would die there, but after a few moments, he heard the welcome crackling of wood igniting. By then, Malta had come to the shelter of his cloak. When her brother gave them an odd look, she lifted her chin and stared him down defiantly. She pressed her wet and shivering body firmly against Reyn's. In the sheltering darkness, he held her, smelling the fragrance of her hair. Boldly he kissed the top of her head. The fine scaling of her crest rasped his cheek, and Malta gave an involuntary shiver. He felt her body flush suddenly with warmth. She looked up at him, surprise intensifying the pale gleam of her Rain Wild eyes.

"Reyn," she gasped, caught between delight and scandal. "You should not do that," she chided primly.

"Are you sure?" he asked by her ear.

"Not when my brother is watching," she amended breathlessly.

The bonfire was burning well now. Reyn lifted anxious eyes to the sky. He had not heard Tintaglia pass overhead for some time, but her anxiety hung strong and infected him. She was still up there, somewhere. He glanced around at the people who had come to the beach with them. Stink Island lived up to its name. All were muck to the knee, and Red, much to his disgust, had fallen in the stuff and was probably regretting his desire to see a dragon up close.

A second bonfire was kindled from the first. Out on the water, the ships suddenly cried out and the dragon replied from a distance. Reyn sounded the warning: "Get out of her way!"

Tintaglia came down in a heavy battering of wings, fighting both the rain and the gusting wind. Unencumbered by a human burden, she would land gracefully, Reyn expected. But as Sorcor had predicted, the muck was slippery. The dragon's braced feet slid and mud flew up from her wildly lashing tail and flapping wings. She skittered to a halt nearly in the bonfire. Tintaglia's eyes flashed angrily over her compromised dignity. She quivered her dripping wings, spattering more mud on the humans.

"What idiot chose this beach?" she demanded furiously. In the next breath, she demanded, "Is there no food ready?"

She complained her way through two hogsheads of salt pork. "Nasty, sticky stuff, too small to bite properly," she proclaimed at the end of her meal, and stalked off to a nearby spring.

"She's immense," Sorcor exclaimed in wonder.

Reyn realized he had become accustomed to her magnificence. Malta had her memories from the dream-box, but this was the first opportunity for the others to see a dragon other than on the wing.

"She is full of beauty, in form and movement," Amber whispered. "I see now what Paragon meant. Only a trueborn dragon is a real dragon. All others are but clumsy imitations."

Jek gave Amber a disdainful glance. "Six Duchies dragons suited me just fine. Would have been fine by you, too, if you'd lived with the fear of being Forged. But," she admitted grudgingly, "she is astounding." Reyn turned aside from their incomprehensible conversation.

"I wonder what Vivacia would have looked like," Althea said quietly. Firelight danced in her eyes as she stared at the dragon's shadowy shape.

"Or Paragon's dragons," Brashen inserted loyally.

Reyn felt a grating of guilt at their words. His family had transformed dragons to ships. Would there some day be an accounting for that? He pushed the thought away.

When Tintaglia came stalking back from the spring, she had cleaned much of the muck from her wings and belly. She gave Reyn a baleful look from her spinning silver eyes. "I said, 'sand'," she rebuked him. She swung her great head to regard the gathered humans. "Good," she acknowledged them. Smoothly she shifted from complaining to demanding. "You will have to build another fire, farther from the waves, where the muck turns to rock. Stone does not make the best of beds, but it is preferable to mud, and I must rest tonight." Then she caught sight of Malta. Her eyes spun more swiftly, gleaming like full moons.

"Step out into the light, little sister. Let me see you."

Reyn feared Malta would offend the dragon by hesitating, but she came boldly to stand before her. Tintaglia's eyes traveled over her from crest to feet. In a warm voice, she announced, "I see you have been well rewarded for your part in freeing me, young Queen. A scarlet crest. You will take much pleasure from that." At Malta's puzzled blush, the dragon chuckled warmly. "What, not even discovered it yet? You will. And you will enjoy a long life in which to relish it."