“Kennit, I have never doubted you. Never. And if you judge it best, I will return to the Marietta until you send for me. Though I hate to be parted from you…”

“No, no.” He forced himself to reach up and pat one of her hands. “Now that you are here, you may as well stay. As long as you keep well clear of Althea and her companion.”

“If this is your will, I shall not question it. In all other things as regard me, you have always been right.” She paused. “And I am sure that Wintrow agrees with me,” she prompted the hapless boy.

“I would like to see Althea,” Wintrow replied miserably. Kennit knew the effort it cost him, and in a tiny way he admired the boy’s tenacity. Etta did not.

“But you will do as Kennit says,” she told him.

Wintrow bowed his head in defeat. “I am sure he has good reasons for wishing me to do this,” he conceded at last.

Etta’s hands were kneading Kennit’s neck and shoulders. He relaxed to her touch, and let the last of his worries lift. It was done. Paragon was gone and Althea Vestrit was his. “We make for Divvytown,” he said quietly. There, he would find a good excuse why Etta must be put ashore and remain there. He glanced at the morose Wintrow. With deep regret, he wondered if he would have to give the boy up as well. He would have to offer Bolt something by way of reconciliation. It might have to be Wintrow, sent off to be a priest.

Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Flights

REYN HAD NOT BELIEVED HE COULD FALL ASLEEP IN THE DRAGON’S CLUTCHES, but he had. He twitched awake, then gave a half-yell at the sight of his feet dangling over nothing. He felt a chuckle from the dragon in response, but she said nothing.

They were getting to know one another well. He could feel her weariness in the rhythm of her wing beats. She needed to rest soon. But for his presence, she had told him, she could have plunged down into shallows near an island, allowing the water to absorb her impact. Because he occupied her forepaws, she sought a beach that was open enough to permit a ponderously flapping landing. In the Pirate Isles, that was not easy to find. The little islands below them were steep-sided and pointed, like mountaintops poking up out of the sea. A few had gentle, sandy beaches. Each rest period, she would select a site and descend in sickening circles. Then, as she got closer to the ground, she would beat her great leathery wings so fiercely that their motion snatched the breath from Reyn’s lungs while filling the air with dust and sand. Once down, she would casually dump him on the sand and bid him get out of her way. Whether he did or not, she leapt into flight again. The turbulence of her passage was enough to fling him to the ground. She would be gone for a few hours or half a day, to hunt, feed, sleep and sometimes feed again.

Reyn used these solitary hours to kindle a fire, eat from his dwindling supplies, and then roll himself up in his cloak to sleep; if he could not sleep, he tormented himself with thoughts of Malta, or with wondering what would become of him if the dragon failed to return.

In the fading light of the winter afternoon, Reyn sighted a beach of black sand amid out-thrusts of black rock. Tintaglia banked her wings and swung toward it. As they circled, several of the black boulders littering the beach stirred. Napping marine mammals lifted their ponderous heads. The sight of the dragon sent them galloping heavily into the waves. Tintaglia cursed, finishing with, “But for carrying you, I’d have a fine, fat meal in my talons right now. It’s rare to find sea bullocks so far north this time of year. I won’t have another chance like that again!”

The layer of black sand over the black bedrock proved to be shallower than it looked. Tintaglia landed, but without dignity, as her great talons scrabbled on the beach like a dog’s claws on a flagged floor. Lashing her tail wildly to keep her balance, she nearly fell on top of him before she managed to stop.

Once she dropped him on the beach, he scuttled hastily away from her, but she did not take off immediately. She was still muttering disconsolately to herself about fine, fat sea bullocks. “Lean, dark red meat and layers of blubber and, oh, the richness of the liver, nothing compares to it, soft and hot in the mouth,” she mourned.

He glanced back at the thickly forested island. “I’ve no doubt you’ll find other game here,” he assured her.

But she was not consoled. “Oh, certainly I will. Lean bony rabbits by the score, or a doe going to ribs already. That is not what I crave, Reyn. Such meat will keep me, but my body clamors to grow. If I had emerged in spring, as I should have, I would have had the whole summer to hunt. I would have grown strong, then fat, and then strong again, and fatter still, until by the time winter threatened, I would have had the reserves to subsist easily on such lean and bony creatures. But I did not.” She shook out her wings and surveyed herself dolefully. “I am hungry all the time, Reyn. And when I briefly sate that hunger, my body demands sleep, so it can build itself up. But I know I cannot sleep, nor hunt and eat as much as I should. Because I must keep my promise to you, if I am to save the last of my kind.”