He longed to do just that. Just admit that he was a weakling and not fit to survive out here. ‘No, I was just scratching my nose. Sorry!’

‘Well, let me know if you need a rest.’ Carson simply stated the possibility. He looked for mockery behind the words and found none. The hunter pulled on his oars again, drawing his boat ahead.

Sedric leaned into his rowing again. Carson had turned his gaze back to the river. He watched the man’s back and tried to copy the way he moved his oars. His broad shoulders and muscular arms moved steadily with the seeming ease of an animal breathing. As he rowed, his head made small movements, watching the water, the passing trees, the dragon, the water. He was like the dragon, Sedric realized. He had his mind on what he was doing, and did it well, and that was enough for him. Sedric knew a moment of pure envy. Would that his own life was that simple.

Could it be?

Of course not.

His own life was a mess. He was out here, far from where he could be successful at anything. He’d taken blood from a dragon, and worse, he’d tasted it, and now he knew the lowness of what he’d done, and what he’d contemplated doing. How could he ever have imagined that they were simply animals, like a pig or a sheep, to be slaughtered as a man pleased? He thought of the bargain he’d struck with that merchant Begasti and shuddered. As soon he would traffic in a child’s heart or the fingers of a woman!

And here was where that ill-founded plan had brought him. He was far from home, and getting farther away every day. His plan for becoming an incredibly wealthy man and spiriting himself and Hest away from Bingtown seemed more unlikely and reprehensible every moment.

He tried to bring that fantasy back to life. He imagined himself and Hest in a beautifully appointed room, regarding one another over a table laden with a perfectly prepared meal. In his dream, there had always been tall doors open to a fragrant garden illuminated by the setting sun. In his dream, an astounded Hest was always demanding to know how he had acquired all this for them, while Sedric leaned back in a chair, a glass of wine in his hand, and silently smiled.

He imagined it all in detail, the laden sideboard, the wine in his glass, the silk shirt, and the birds calling as they flitted from bush to tree in the evening garden. He could recall every bit of his dream, but he could not make it move, could no longer hear Hest’s intrigued and eager questions, could no longer make his face smile as he would have smiled and shook his head, refusing all answers. It had become unruly, a dream turned to nightmare in which he knew that Hest would have had too much to drink, and that he had refused the fish as overcooked and leeringly commented on the serving boy who came to clear the dishes. The real Hest would have asked him if he’d whored himself out on the streets to get this money. The real Hest would disdain whatever Sedric presented, would have criticized the wine, found the house too ostentatious to be tasteful, would have complained that the food was too rich.

The Hest of his dreams had been replaced by the man Hest had steadily become over the last two years, the mocking, sour Hest, the impossible-to-please Hest, the domineering Hest who had banished him here for daring to disagree with him. The Hest who had begun to bludgeon him, more and more often, with reminders that the money they spent was Hest’s, that Hest fed him, clothed him and gave him a place to sleep at night. What had Sedric thought? That by becoming the source of the wealth and taking control of it, he could make Hest go back to the man he had thought he was?

Or had he wanted to become Hest, to be the man in charge?

His oars dug deeply into the water. His back and neck and shoulders and arms all ached. His hands burned. But not even that pain could drown out the truth. From the beginning, from their very first time together, Hest had enjoyed dominating him. Always, he had sent for Sedric, and Sedric had come to him. The man had never been tender, never kind or considerate. He’d laughed at the bruises he’d left on Sedric, and Sedric had bowed his head and smiled ruefully, accepting such treatment as his due. Hest had never really gone too far, of course. Except for that one time, when he had been drunk, and Sedric had enraged him by trying to help him up the stairs of the inn. That one time – he’d been truly violent and drawn blood when he struck him. He’d fallen down the stairs. But only that one time – and the time when, in vengeance because Sedric had not agreed with him that a merchant had deliberately cheated him but suggested it was only an error, Hest had left the inn in a carriage without him, forcing Sedric to run through the most dangerous part of a rough Chalcedean town in order to board the ship minutes before it sailed. Hest had never apologized for that, only mocked him to the merriment of several of the fellows travelling with them.

One of them, he now recalled, would be with Hest now. Kope. Redding Kope, with his plump little mouth and stubby-fingered hands, always hanging on Hest’s every word, always eager to win a smile from him with his sly mockery of Sedric. Well, Kope would have Hest to himself now. Savagely he wished the man small joy of it. Perhaps he might find the prize he had won was not what he had thought it.

Thymara had left the barge early in the morning, after begging the use of one of the small boats from Captain Leftrin, who had seemed in an uncommonly generous mood that morning. He had ordered Davvie to row her ashore in the remaining ship’s boat, telling her to halloo from the trees when she wanted a ride back to the vessel. She’d taken a couple of carry-sacks and promised she’d try to find fresh fruit or vegetables for them all.

She hadn’t told Tats she was going. She hadn’t told anyone. Still, she hadn’t been that surprised when he came to help them put the small boat over the side. And when he’d clambered down the ladder and sat down behind her, that hadn’t surprised her either.

She had the amount of time it took Davvie to row them ashore to consider how to react to Tats’ presence. Davvie’s friendly chatter kept him busy until then. Evidently he’d just become friends with Lecter and was full of questions about him. Tats answered as well as he could. Lecter had always been a bit aloof; none of them knew him well. Thymara was happy for him; she didn’t know Davvie well but had noticed how alone he seemed to be. She understood Leftrin’s decision to keep a distance between his ship’s crew and the keepers, but had pitied Davvie as the only youngster on the ship. She hoped for his sake that Leftrin would loosen his rules a bit, and allow his friendship with Lecter to continue.

Davvie nudged the small boat up onto the bank of the river as close as he could get to a tree’s out-thrust roots. She and Tats disembarked onto the knees of the trees. From there, Thymara sprang for the trunk and was able to sink her claws in and scrabble up. Tats bid Davvie farewell, and then followed her more laboriously. Once they reached the branches, they both travelled more easily. Neither one of them said much for a time, other than, ‘Watch out, it’s slippery here,’ or ‘Stinging ants. Move quickly.’

She led and he followed, moving in parallel to the river’s edge, moving upstream as she travelled higher into the branches.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked her at last.

‘Looking for fruit vines. The kind with air roots. They like the light along the riverbank.’

‘Good. I don’t feel like having to climb all the way up to the canopy today.’

‘I don’t either. We’d waste most of our time just going up and coming down again. I want to gather as much food as we can today.’

‘Good idea. It’s going to be harder to feed everybody now. Most all our fishing gear is gone. Along with most of our other supplies. Our blankets are gone. We lost a lot of knives.’