Bellin’s words rankled. She thought of how Greft had said he would establish a place where there were new rules. Had he thought about why the rules existed, and who they protected?

The girls reached the railing. To Thymara’s surprise, Jerd’s dragon Veras was there. Like all of the dragons, she had grown larger, and her colours were brighter. She did not speak to any of them. They all knew why she was there. A little shiver went up Thymara’s spine, and then she accepted it. Jerd’s stillborn baby would be eaten by her dragon. Was that any worse than letting the tiny body drop into the water for fish to find?

Swarge was on the tiller. He looked up at them with a grave expression and sad eyes. Thymara knew this would not be the first stillborn child he had seen tipped over the side. He lowered his eyes and his lips moved, perhaps in a silent prayer. Skelly began to extend her hands and the wrapped bundle over the railing. Veras lifted her head.

‘Wait.’ Sylve spoke abruptly. ‘I want to see it… her. I want to see the baby before she’s gone forever. One of us at least should look at her.’

‘Are you sure?’ Skelly asked.

‘I am,’ Sylve replied. Thymara couldn’t find words but gave a single stiff nod.

Sylve rested the small body on the railing as she folded the concealing rag back. Thymara found herself looking at a tiny creature that would have fitted in her cupped hands with room to spare. The little round head was tucked in towards her chest, and the tiny arms were folded tight to her chest. As Bellin had said, she had no legs, only a finned tail. Another partially formed fin was on her back. ‘She couldn’t have lived,’ Sylve confirmed, and Thymara nodded.

Veras stretched her neck and Sylve reached out and, as gently as she could, rolled the child into the dragon’s mouth. Veras closed her jaws and immediately turned her head aside and wheeled away from the ship. It was done.

Carson had decided to act on the assumption that Greft was attempting to head back to Trehaug. ‘Where else could he go?’ he asked Sedric. ‘He’s a man in failing health, alone. He doesn’t have a lot of choice. One of his options was to remain with us. He decided against that. He must have felt there was too much hostility for him to endure. That makes me wonder why he’d try to get back to Trehaug. I doubt he’d be treated any better there. He’s looking at travelling a long, hard way alone, to die among the people who rejected him in the first place.’

Sedric nodded silently. He had a guilty theory of his own, one he kept to himself. He hoped he was wrong.

They had been backtracking through the reeds and shallow water, though how Carson knew where to go, Sedric could not have said. For days, the scenery had seemed unendingly the same to him. From time to time, Carson would say something like, ‘See, the dragons trampled that area flat when they came through here,’ or, ‘Remember that stand of rushes with the three blackbird nests in a row? We passed that late yesterday’

They had come to an area of scrubby brush on stilt-roots. There was no solid ground anywhere, but the feeble current pushed floating branches and twigs and reeds up around the stilt-roots where they formed soggy mattresses of plant material. This seemed to be the favourite bedding spots for gallators. The immense, toothy salamanders dozed in clusters in such places, the pallid bodies marked with brilliant stripes of blue and red. The wet-skinned creatures had proven especially vulnerable to dragon venom. Just touching the moist skin of a gallator was death for most creatures, but the dragons ate them with no apparent ill effects.

This area Sedric did remember clearly. Yesterday, the dragons had preceded them, devouring a number of gallators and sending the rest into hiding. But today the dozing creatures did not flee, but lifted their heads and regarded the small boat with hungry interest. Sedric glanced around for Spit, only to discover that this was the time when the dragon had chosen to lag behind. ‘Carson?’ he hissed in quiet warning as two of the gallators launched silently into the water and vanished from sight beneath the surface.

‘I saw them,’ Carson replied as quietly. He lifted his paddle from the water and Sedric did the same. ‘Hold tight. They may try to overturn us, but these boats don’t flip too easily.’ He glanced back at the lagging Spit and shook his head ruefully. ‘Little bastard is using us as chum, to lure the gallators away from cover. That’s nice, Spit, real nice.’ He took a slow, steady breath. ‘Hold tight to the seat, not the sides. You don’t want any part of your body outside the boat. Move as little as you can. The less alive and meaty we look, the better.’

Sedric quickly shifted his grip. They sat still, waiting. There was a tentative bump against the bottom of the boat. Sedric tightened his grip on the seat, felt his nails press against the hard wood. Carson was turned on his seat, watching him, a tense grin on his face. A short fishing spear was in his hand. Sedric moistened his lips and felt a second, harder bump, followed by a sideways push. Carson mouthed the words, ‘Be still’ at him. That wasn’t a problem. He felt too scared to move.

Then came an impact that lifted Sedric’s end of the boat out of the water. It settled with a splash and at the same moment, a gallator struck it from the side. The boat tipped far enough to ship some water, but righted itself. The gallator surged at the boat again but could not get its squat-necked head into it. Carson reared back and with a huff of effort, sank the fishing spear into the thing’s neck. It gave a wet squeal and fell back into the water. The slime it had left on the side of the boat stank.

‘Hang on TIGHT!’ Carson’s terse warning came just in time. Sedric tightened his grip just as the boat was struck from the other side. His body whipped with the impact, and nearly slammed him against the toxic slime oozing down the side of the boat. A buffet of wind hit them, and then a tremendous splash of water. It soaked Sedric and added more water to what was already in the boat.

It took a few seconds for him to understand that Spit had been briefly airborne. The little silver dragon had actually managed a moment of flight before splashing down beside the boat and nearly swamping it. The cold water had driven the breath from Sedric’s lungs. He was still shuddering and gasping when Spit lifted a struggling gallator from the water and joyously sheared it in half. As the two bloody halves fell from his jaws, the dragon darted his head under the water and came up with a second gallator. This one he gripped by its head, and it thrashed wildly, showering water and toxins in a spray. Both Carson and Sedric cowered in the boat, covering their faces until Spit clamped his jaws and the creature stilled in death.

As they sat up cautiously, Spit wolfed down the body of the gallator and then nosed in the water until he came up with the severed halves of the first one. These he ate with evident enjoyment.

‘You’re welcome,’ Carson said sarcastically, ‘I always enjoy being the bait on a hook.’ But despite his words, Sedric could tell that the hunter was mildly amused by the dragon’s strategy and respected him for it. He was still shaking his head over this when Carson said in a low voice, ‘Oh, sweet Sa, no. I didn’t want to find him like that.’

Sedric’s eyes snapped to his face; then he followed his gaze. There was Greft’s boat. It was not quite overturned, but it was tipped up against a tangle of brush. As one, they dug their paddles in and left Spit to his feeding.

Greft was in the boat still. He’d wedged himself in and the gallators hadn’t managed to dislodge him. Some of the venom from a gallator’s skin had hit him. His arm was a swollen sausage flung across his chest. Sedric judged that he had tried to ward off a gallator attack and got the venom on his skin.