Robin Hobb - Blood of Dragons

She shut the door in his face. She crossed the room and sat down on the small chair in front of the mirrored vanity. She looked at herself, at the winged Elderling Thymara.

And then she let her tears take her.

‘Dawn,’ Thymara scoffed. ‘I think the dragons meant, “After we wake up and when we feel like it.”’

‘They need the sun.’ Tats excused their late arrival. ‘And it’s important for them to have the Silver, as much as they can drink. They will fly faster and longer.’

‘And their venom will be all the more potent,’ Thymara added. ‘Sintara told me so. She said that Tintaglia had counselled them all to drink deeply before they departed.’

The small group fell silent. The force was finally massing in the middle of the Square of the Dragons as the sun approached noon. All of the dragons were going. Some, like Heeby and Kalo and Sestican, had chosen elaborate harnesses. Others had submitted grudgingly to a simple strap that secured a perch for a rider. A few, like Sintara, had refused all harness and even the idea of carrying a rider into battle. Sintara had dismissed Thymara’s offer to go with her with a brusque ‘You’d be in my way.’ Fente had listened to Tats’s ardent pleas to accompany her with great pleasure, but in the end she, too, had dismissed him. He now watched the others with undisguised envy. Davvie already perched high on Kalo, staring around him as if he had never seen Kelsingra or his fellow keepers before. A half-smile came and went on his face. Thymara watched him and wondered why all of the boys were so eager to go to war.

Reyn was going. Tintaglia was resplendent in a jewelled harness, the metallic plates fastened together with wires. She had chosen gold and a pale sky blue that set off her own indigo scaling. Next to her, Reyn wore a helm of pale blue and an Elderling tunic of the same colour. There had been no armour that fitted him. He had dismissed it with, ‘It would have been too hot and heavy anyway. And at least this time, when I travel with Tintaglia, she will not squeeze me in half with her claws as she nearly did the last time I flew with her.’

His attempt to make light of his departure with the dragon failed with his wife. Malta was not pleased to let him go and not only because she feared for him. No, she had wanted to be the one to ride the queen into battle. Her anger at what had been done to her dragon had only grown as the full tale became known. And she had old reasons of her own to wish revenge upon Chalced, as well as her more recent injuries at their hands. ‘The vengeance should be mine! I have never forgotten my days aboard a Chalcedean ship, and at their mercy. Nor will I ever forgive that they tried to kill my child!’ Only her baby’s needs had kept her in the city and on the ground.

Jerd had not wanted to go, but Veras had insisted. Thymara pitied her. Her face was pale and strange with all her hair tucked away under a helm. She gripped one of their old bows and her quiver was full of hunting arrows. She sat on the ground near her queen and looked as if she might be sick. Sylve stood beside her, looking more insubstantial than ever in the sleek-fitting armour. Harrikin stood staring at her, his heart in his eyes. His dragon had refused him. He had begged Veras to take him instead of Jerd but the queen had refused, and Ranculos had been livid with jealousy at the idea. ‘You will stay here,’ he had told his keeper, and Harrikin was left with no other choice. Nortel was going and looked almost as pleased as Rapskal about it.

On the steps of the baths, seven former slaves sat watching the chaos and pageantry as if it were a puppet show. Long servitude had left harsh marks on all of them, minds as well as bodies. Thymara wondered if they fully grasped that the Tarman had truly departed, leaving them here to begin new lives. Only a few had adopted the Elderling garb they had been offered. The others had washed and mended their tattered clothes and seemed to be grateful that they were allowed time to do that. They still kept to themselves and spoke mostly Chalcedean to one another.

Rapskal was everywhere, striding about, directing keepers to tighten or loosen a harness strap, asking each keeper if they had filled a water bag and packed rations. He had a practised air to his motions and questions that nearly broke Thymara’s heart. She knew it was Tellator who was seeing to his soldiers. She watched him sternly assist Jerd to mount and stand by her as she settled into place on Veras. The other keepers imitated her.

Spit had insisted that he would carry no one, not even Carson. They had quarrelled about it, and when the hunter had attempted to put a harness on the silver dragon, Spit had hissed at him. Mercor had intervened. ‘This is something a dragon decides for himself,’ he had warned Carson gravely. The hunter stood beside Relpda and looked up at Sedric perched on her back. Tightly packed gear bags hung from the rings on her bell-studded harness. Thymara thought to herself that Carson had packed everything he could possibly imagine Sedric needing. The two men regarded one another gravely. Carson reached out to touch Sedric’s boot, nodded tightly and then turned away. She saw Sedric swallow and lift his face to stare into the distance. Thymara shook her head sadly for them.

‘Kase and Boxter?’ she asked Tats.

‘Going. Alum isn’t. You know how Arbuc loves to show off when he flies. He didn’t want to worry about spilling Alum off if he did a back-loop.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘It’s going to be very strange to be such a small group here in the city. Especially with Tarman and most of the captives gone.’

She touched his hand. ‘At least we’ll be together,’ she reminded him.

He didn’t look at her. His eyes were following Fente. She had chosen a bright-yellow harness and once he had adjusted it for her, his dragon had dismissed him. ‘I wish we were both going with them.’

Malta drifted over to stand with them. In silence, they watched Rapskal climb up the straps that dangled from Heeby’s harness and take his place in a high-backed saddle almost between her wings. Once settled, he lifted his horn to his lips and blew out a precise ascension of notes. ‘Tellator.’ She growled the name to herself and looked away from the Elderling who had stolen the boy she had known. Heeby gathered herself under him and instead of her familiar trundling take-off, leapt into the air, bearing him up with her.

In the next moment, Thymara and Tats were blasted with wind as the rest of the dragons launched into flight. The beating of their wings battered her ears and blew her hair across her face. The rank smell of dragon musk assailed her and then, just as abruptly, they were standing in the silent square, looking up as the dragons grew smaller above them. She blinked dust from her eyes.

Malta spoke into the silence. ‘Tintaglia’s gone, and Reyn with her.’ The baby she held hiccupped and she patted him absently. ‘I never imagined how hard it would be to watch them both leave us.’ She folded the child closer to her.

Thymara heard her unvoiced thought. How many of them would return and when?

‘Oh, Fente, be careful,’ Tats murmured, his eyes fixed on his diminishing green dragon. He turned to Malta. ‘I don’t even know how far Chalced is from here, or how long it will take them to get there.’

Malta shook her head. ‘No one knows how long it takes a dragon to fly anywhere. They have clear weather, at least for starting the journey. The dragons will have to take time to hunt each day, and they will sleep at night when it’s dark. But they will travel straight this time rather than following the river. So, I have no idea at all.’ She gave a sigh. ‘Tarman left this morning with a full load of passengers, Tillamon amongst them.’