Robin Hobb - Blood of Dragons

Sedric’s hand closed on the paper, crumpling it. ‘You don’t know what became of him. And I don’t care.’ He tossed the message to the ground and the wind off the river gave it a small push. Carson looked at it for a moment, and then put his arm across Sedric’s shoulder.

‘The pigeons are all right for now,’ he said. ‘But what we should give some thought to is where we want to house the chickens.’ The summer sunlight glinted on the two Elderlings as they turned away from the river and walked up into Kelsingra.

‘What do you think is beyond the foothills?’

‘More foothills.’ Tats panted. ‘Then mountains.’

They had paused to catch their breath and drink from their water-skin. The day was warm. Summer was growing strong. Thymara had freed her wings from her tunic and held them half-open to cool herself. Tats and Thymara had been climbing steadily since morning. They both carried their bows, but Thymara was more interested in exploration than hunting today. She turned and looked down over the green-flanked hills to the city below them. Most of it remained still and uninhabited, but there was activity down near the docks. The crew of the White Serpent had taken her out on the river. The oars moved evenly as the ship moved against the current. The wind carried the faint shouts of Rachard as he called the stroke-beat to them. The former slave was the teacher now, and seemed to be adapting well to his new role.

‘Look.’ Thymara pointed in a different direction. ‘Sedric’s trees. The ones he and Carson dug up and moved to the big pots on the Square of the Dragons? You can actually see the leaves on them from here. They almost look like trees now instead of sticks.’

A dragon trumpet, a taunting challenge, turned Thymara’s eyes to the clear blue sky above. ‘Again?’ she groaned aloud.

‘Apparently,’ Tats said with vast approval. He swivelled his head. ‘Where is he?’

Tintaglia was overhead. As they watched, she spiralled upward, ever higher. She trumpeted again, and they heard it answered from the east. They both turned to watch Kalo coming. This was not the leisurely circling of a dragon seeking game, nor the diving fall of a dragon strike. His long powerful wings drove him forward and upward. He looked black against the blue of the sky, except that each down-stroke briefly bared the silver tips of his wings. His long tail snaked and lashed behind him as he flew.

Tintaglia was a glittering blue set of wings in the sky. She hung, circling effortlessly. Her mocking call reached them clearly.

Tats scanned the rest of the sky. ‘I don’t see IceFyre this time.’

‘That last battle was pretty savage. Alise told me that from what she learned when she first studied dragons from scrolls and records, the males seldom did serious injury to one another in mating battles.’

‘I don’t think Kalo read the same scrolls she did. I think that after their last clash, IceFyre conceded. Probably went off to kill something big, eat it and sleep it off.’ Tats nodded to himself. ‘The better dragon won. I’m glad Kalo got a mate.’

Thymara corked the water-skin. ‘Let’s follow that cleft up to the cliffs. I want to look at them and see how hard they’d be to climb.’

Tats stood staring upward. Kalo’s deep frustrated roars were answering Tintaglia’s clear trumpeting. ‘Don’t you want to watch?’ he teased her.

‘Thank you, but half a dozen times was enough. Can’t they be done with it for the day?’

‘I think they’re enjoying it. Wait. What’s that?’

Something had caught his attention in a different quadrant of the sky. Thymara strained her eyes. ‘Sintara. But what’s she doing?’

The younger blue queen was moving faster than Thymara had ever seen her fly. Arrow straight she flew. Then as golden Mercor crested the ridge behind them, Thymara heard Sintara utter the same challenging trumpet that she had first heard from Tintaglia. Scarlet Baliper and orange Dortean suddenly rose from the forested hillside. ‘Oh, this should be good,’ Tats exclaimed and sat down. He flopped back in the meadow grass and stared at the rivals as they closed in on Sintara. ‘Baliper might have a chance against Mercor,’ he speculated. ‘They’re about of a size, but I think Mercor is cleverer. Dortean? I don’t think so.’

As if the dragons had heard him, Mercor suddenly looped in his flight and turned on the hapless Dortean. The orange male fled but could not evade the golden. Mercor chased him as he fled, and as Dortean neared the ground, Mercor dived on him. Dortean no longer had the altitude for evasion. He crashed into the trees, sending a large flock of starlings into mad flight. Mercor narrowly avoided following his rival into arboreal disaster. Wings beating strongly, he pulled up just above the treetops and skimmed over them. The branches waved wildly in his wake.

Baliper had made good use of the distraction. The red dragon battered his way skyward, while Sintara continued to mock him. Mercor roared a challenge at him, but Baliper did not waste his breath in a response and continued to gain on Sintara. Her mockery changed to an angry cry. She flew at him, they clashed in midair, and Baliper fell away in a dazed spiral. In a dozen wing-beats they had both recovered, but he had lost more altitude than she had. He was focused completely on his pursuit of her when Mercor struck him from behind.

Baliper writhed back, flipping to face the golden, and the males gripped, talons to talons. Wings beating wildly, front talons clenched and roaring at one another, they were falling through the sky as they tore at each other with their clawed hind feet. Sintara, silent now, circled above them, watching her suitors fight. Far above her, the silhouettes of Tintaglia and Kalo had merged.

‘They’re falling, falling … break it up, fellows, or you’ll both die!’ Tats cried out in awe.

But Baliper and Mercor did not separate, not for another two breaths. Then with an infuriated scream, Mercor abruptly tore himself free of the scarlet dragon. Wings beating wildly, he careened off. Baliper managed to flip over, and then to veer away from the trees that had awaited him. He landed badly in a meadow, rolling and bending a wing before crashing to a halt. Thymara stared at him, sick with dread, until she saw him lift his head, stand, and then shake his wings back into position. As if aware of her gaze, he gave a final angry trumpet before stalking off into the shelter of the woods.

‘He’s nearly caught her!’ Tats exclaimed admiringly.

Thymara turned her eyes skyward. Sintara seemed to be making a very genuine attempt to escape Mercor. She looped back once, slashed at him with an angry scream, and then tried to resume her climb. It was useless. The tempo of Mercor’s golden wings increased and his speed with it. Suddenly, the golden dragon overshadowed the blue. His head snaked in to seize the back of her neck in his teeth.

‘He’s got her.’ Tats sounded very satisfied. He rolled his head to grin at Thymara and then continued to watch the mating dragons.

Thymara made a disgusted exclamation and gave him a strong push. He turned to her, grinning, and before she could draw her hand back, he seized her wrist. He tried to pull her to him, but she jerked free of him, turned and ran. Her heart was beating wildly. ‘Thymara!’ Tats shouted and ‘No!’ she called over her shoulder.

She ran, but the sudden thunder of his footfalls was close behind her. She felt him catch at the trailing edge of her wing. She snatched it from his grip, felt a sudden lift from her spread wings, and closed them on the down-beat. Behind her, Tats gave a wordless startled cry.

‘The ravine!’ he shouted, and she saw it wide before her. It gaped, a steep-sided crack in the hillside, possibly a scar of the same quake that had levelled parts of Kelsingra. She started to slow, to turn to elude him, but he was too close behind her. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted, but it wasn’t, she decided, it wasn’t stupid at all.