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to hit it and jab for it.’ I sound like my father, she realized abruptly. And just as suddenly discovered that she was enjoying teaching Alise.
Alise was a good student. She listened. She took her breath, focused on whatever she was seeing, and plunged the spear in. Thymara had not believed there was a fish there, but the spear went into something alive, for a very large patch of water suddenly erupted into furious thrashing. ‘Hold the spear firm, hold the spear firm!’ she shouted at Alise and then leapt forward to add her weight to the Bingtown woman’s. Whatever she had jabbed was large, and possibly not a fish at all. The thrust had pinned something to the river bottom. It was large and flat-bodied and had a lash-like tail that suddenly began snapping about below the water. ‘It might have barbs or a sting! Watch out!’ Thymara warned her. She thought Alise would let go her grip on the spear; instead she hung on doggedly.
‘Get … another spear … or something!’ Alise gasped.
For a moment, Thymara froze. Then she dashed off back to the boats. Tats’ was closest and his gear was inside it. He was sitting on the ground next to it, just waking up. ‘Borrowing your spear!’ she barked at him, and as he began to stir, she snatched it up and ran back with it.
‘It’s getting away!’ Alise was shouting as Thymara dashed back. Someone followed her. She glanced back, and saw Rapskal and Sylve coming at a run, with Captain Leftrin behind them. The camp had awakened while she and Alise were fishing. Heedless of the animal’s lashing tail, Alise had waded out into the water to lean more heavily on the spear. Thymara gritted her teeth and plunged in. She jabbed her spear into the murky water where she judged the main part of the fish’s body to be. It went deep into something muscular; the spear pole was all but snatched out of her hands by the creature’s furious reaction. It moved, dragging her and Alise into deeper water in its efforts to escape.
‘We’ll have to let it go!’ she gasped, but behind her Rapskal shouted, ‘No!’ and waded in with a will. Heedless of the tail that wildly lashed through the water, he proceeded to jab the thing half a dozen times with his own fish spear. Dark blood tendrilled through the murky water and the fish only re doubled its efforts.
‘Pull out my spear! Don’t let it carry it off!’ Thymara shouted at Alise. She was soaked to the waist and grimly clinging to the spear.
‘Nor mine!’ Tats shouted. ‘Thymara, that’s my last one!’
‘Out of the way!’ Sintara trumpeted, but gave no one time to obey her. The dragon lumbered into the water as Rapskal frantically tried to avoid her.
‘Thymara!’ Tats shouted, and then Sintara’s unfolding wing hit her. The water seemed to leap up and seize her; the spear was jerked from her hands. Then something large, flat and alive struck her, rasping fabric and skin from her left arm before propelling her into deeper water. She opened her mouth to shout a protest and silty water filled it. She blew it out, but had no air to replace it. She held her breath desperately. She had never learned to swim; she was a climber, made for the canopy, and she floundered in this foreign element that had seized her and was hurrying her along to somewhere.
Light broke over her face suddenly, but before she could take a breath, she sank again. Someone, she thought, had shouted something. Her eyes stung and her arm burned. Something seized her, engulfing her torso and squeezing. She beat at the scaly thing with her fists and her mouth burst open in an airless scream. It dragged her through the water and then out of it. A thought penetrated her mind. I have her! I have her!
Then she was hanging from Mercor’s jaws. She could feel his teeth through her clothes. He held her gingerly, but still they scratched her. Before she could react to being in a dragon’s mouth, he dropped her on the muddy river bank. A circle of shouting people closed around her as she gagged up river water and sand. It ran in gritty streams from her nose. She wiped at her face and someone pushed a blanket into her hands. She dried her face on a corner of it and blinked her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but it slowly cleared.
‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ It was Tats, kneeling next to her, soaking wet, and asking the same question over and over.
‘It’s my fault! I didn’t want to let the fish go. Oh, Sa forgive me, it’s all my fault! Is she going to be all right? She’s bleeding! Oh, someone get some bandaging!’ Alise was pale, her red hair hanging in wet streamers down her face.
Rapskal was fussing over her, trying to hold her down. Thymara pushed him aside and sat up, to belch and spit out more sandy water. ‘Please, give me some space,’ she said. It was only when a shadow moved away that she became aware that a dragon had been standing over her also. She spat more grit out of her mouth. Her eyes were sore and tears could not come. She wiped at them lightly with her fingers and silt came away.
‘Tip your head back,’ Tats ordered her gruffly, and when she did, he poured clean water over her face. ‘Doing your arm now,’ he warned her, and the cool flow made her gasp as it eased the burning she’d been trying to ignore. She sneezed abruptly and water and mucus flew everywhere. She wiped her face with the blanket, earning a cry of ‘Hey, that’s my blanket!’ from Rapskal.
‘You can use mine,’ she said hoarsely. She suddenly realized she wasn’t dead or dying, only strangely humiliated by everyone’s attention. She struggled to get to her feet. When Tats helped her, she managed not to jerk her arm away from him, though she didn’t like to appear weak in front of everyone. An instant later, it was even worse when Alise enveloped her in a hug.
‘Oh, Thymara, I’m so sorry! I nearly killed you and all for a fish!’
She managed to disentangle herself from Alise. ‘What sort of a fish was it?’ she asked, trying to divert attention away from herself. Her abraded arm stung and her clothes were wet. She slung the blanket around her shoulders as Alise said, ‘Come and see. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Neither had Thymara. In shape, it was like an inverted dinner plate, but a plate twice the size of Thymara’s blanket. It had two bulbous eyes on top of its body, and a long, whiplike tail with a series of barbs on the end. The top of it was speckled light and dark, like the river bottom, but its underside was white. It bore the wounds of spears in a dozen places, and gashes where Sintara had dragged it ashore. ‘Is it a fish?’ she asked incredulously.
‘Looks a bit like a ray; yes, a fish,’ Leftrin commented. ‘But I’ve never seen anything like this in the river, only in salt water. And I’ve never seen one this size.’
‘And it’s mine to eat,’ Sintara asserted. ‘But for me, it would have been lost.’
‘Your greed nearly killed me,’ Thymara said. She did not speak loudly but firmly. She was surprised she could say the words so calmly. ‘You knocked me into the river. I nearly drowned.’ She looked at the dragon and Sintara looked back. She sensed nothing from her, no sense of remorse, or justification. They’d come so far together. The dragon had grown stronger and larger and definitely more beautiful. But unlike the other dragons she had not grown closer to her keeper. A terrible regret welled up in her. Sintara grew more beautiful daily; she was, without doubt, the most glorious creature that Thymara had ever seen. She had dreamed of being companion to such a wonderful being, dreamed of basking in her reflected glory. She’d fed the dragon to the best of her ability, groomed her daily, doctored her when she thought she could help her and praised her and flattered her through every step of their day. She’d seen her grow in health and strength.
And today the dragon had nearly killed her. By carelessness, not temper. And did not express even a moment of regret. Her earlier question came back to her. Why had the dragons wanted keepers? The answer seemed clear to her now. To be their servants. Nothing more.
She had heard people speak of ‘heartbreak’. She had not known that it actually caused a pain in the chest, as if, indeed, her heart were torn. She looked at her dragon and struggled to find words. She could have said, ‘You are no longer my dragon and I am not your keeper.’ But she didn’t because it suddenly seemed as if that had never been true at all. She shook her head slowly at the beautiful sapphire creature and then turned aside from her. She looked round at