The barge moved out into the river. It nosed, not towards the swift-flowing acid river with the wide open channel but towards one long green tunnel of fresh water that she had explored yesterday. She realized what was happening at the same moment Sedric did.

‘Tarman is leaving without us!’

‘Wait!’ This came in a wild shriek from Sylve. Thymara glanced in her direction, but could not tell if she called to the ship or Mercor, for the dragons were in motion, moving to follow the barge. Tarman had wallowed out into deeper water. None of the polemen were at their posts, but he was moving determinedly against the current. Thymara saw a disturbance in the water behind him, and guessed at the presence of a tail.

‘We’re being left behind. Come on!’ She had been the one clutching at Sedric. But now he shrugged free of her hold on his arm, caught her by the hand. Her free hand snagged the still-staring Sylve. ‘Run!’ he told them. ‘Come on!’

They pelted down the beach towards the shore. Shouts of both anger and dismay from Tarman’s deck told her that there was nothing that the crew or keepers could do to detain the barge. She wondered briefly about the hunters. As was their wont, they had set out before dawn to look for meat, and had doubtless headed up the other tributary of the river. How long would it take them to realize that the barge and the dragons had gone off in a different direction?

They were not the only keepers left on shore. All of them were converging on the three small boats that remained on shore. Kase and Boxter had claimed Greft’s boat, but stood by to see if they’d have to make room for another keeper. Alum was in one of the other boats and as she watched, Harrikin spoke with him. The third boat was empty. ‘Go!’ she shouted at them. ‘We’ll take the other boat.’

‘Right!’ Alum shouted back to her, and in moments they were launched. The barge was moving with swift certainty up the waterway. The dragons split and went around the small boats, waded out into the water and followed. They would soon pass the barge. Kase and Boxter had taken up their paddles and were moving out into the river.

By the time Thymara, Sylve and Sedric reached the final boat, they were alone on the shore. Thymara glanced back at the campsite. No, nothing left behind. A fire smouldered on the wet muddy flat. Nothing remained to show they had been there but trampled ground and the rising smoke.

‘Will it hold three?’ Sedric asked worriedly.

‘It won’t be comfortable, but we’ll be fine. Besides, there’s no choice. You can turn your bucket upside-down and perch on that. I suspect we’ll come alongside Tarman before too long, and we can ask them to take you up then, if you’d like.’ She turned to a strangely-quiet Sylve. The girl looked stricken. ‘What’s the matter?’

Sylve shook her head slowly. ‘He just went with the others. Mercor didn’t even wait to see if I had a way to follow. He just left.’ She blinked her eyes and one pink-tinged tear trickled down her cheek.

‘Oh, Sylve.’ Thymara felt sorry for her, but also impatient. Now was not the time for indulging in emotion. They had to catch up with the ship.

‘Mercor’s no fool. He knew there were boats on the shore, and that you’ve taken care of yourself in the past. He had to get the dragons moving before any of them had second thoughts. He hasn’t abandoned you; he just thinks you’re capable. Let’s prove he’s right.’ Sedric spoke hastily, smoothing the quarrel before it could start. He was tired of conflict.

He upended his bucket to make a seat for himself in the middle of the boat and it gave him a slightly higher perch and a different view of the river. Thymara pushed them off and Sylve dug in her paddle with a will, devoting themselves to creating as much speed as they could. There was no discussion; all knew they’d make better time with the girls at the oars.

This was Sedric’s first opportunity to observe the river and the surrounding jungle from this perspective. The last time he’d been in one of the small boats, he’d been so busy trying to keep up with Carson that he hadn’t had time to look around. Now he stared at the lushest forest he’d ever seen. Trees, both deciduous and evergreen, leaned out over the water. Vines draped some of them. Undergrowth was thick, and reeds and rushes populated the mossy banks of the river.

‘It’s so alive,’ Sylve said in a voice full of wonder.

So he hadn’t been imagining the difference.

‘It even smells different. Just, well, green. Alise and I walked a short way up here yesterday, and we both noticed it. There’s no acid in the water, no whiteness to it at all. And there’s a lot more life. I saw frogs swimming in the water yesterday. Right in the water.’

‘Frogs usually swim in the water,’ Sedric suggested.

‘Maybe near Bingtown they do. But in the Rain Wilds, we find frogs up in the trees. Not in the river.’

He thought about that for a bit. Every time he thought he had grasped how much his life had changed, some new awareness doused him. He nodded quietly.

This tributary was completely unlike the main channel. It wound gently through the forest, and the trees leaned in over the water, seeking sunlight and blocking the view upstream. For a time, they pursued the dragons and the barge, but then the river rounded a gentle bend and they lost sight of everything except the other two small boats. They were at the tail end of the procession. If they capsized now, or if they came upon a pod of gallators on the river bank For a moment, tension tightened his gut. Then a peculiar thought came to him.

If anything befell him, Carson would come looking for him. Carson.

A smile relaxed his face. It was true and he knew it. Carson would come for him.

He was still trying to reconcile the man with his concept of life. He’d never met a man like Carson, never known anyone who schooled his strength to such gentleness. He was not educated or cultured. He knew nothing of wines, had never travelled beyond the Rain Wilds, and had read fewer than a dozen books in his life. The framework that supported Sedric’s self-respect was missing from Carson’s life. Without an appreciation for such things, how could he appreciate who and what Sedric was? Why did the hunter like him? It mystified him.

Carson’s life was framed by this forest-and-water world. He knew the ways of animals and spoke of them with great fondness and respect. But he killed them, too. Sedric had watched him butcher, seen his strength as he cut into an animal’s hip joint and then used the his hands to lever the bone out of the socket. ‘Once you know how an animal is put together, it’s a lot easier to take it apart,’ Carson had explained to Sedric as he finished his bloody chore and made the meat ready for cooking.

Sedric had watched his hands, the blood on his wrists, the bits of flesh caught under his nails as he worked and thought of those strong hands on his own body. It had put a shiver up his spine, a thrill of erotic dread. Yet Carson was gentle, almost tentative in his moments with Sedric and several times Sedric had found himself moving into the role of aggressor. The sensation of being in control had been heady and in some ways freeing. He had watched Carson’s eyes and mouth in the dim light of his small room, and seen no fear in his face, no resentment that, for that time, Sedric was in charge. He contrasted it sometimes to how Hest would react to such a thing. ‘Don’t try to tell me what you want,’ Hest had once commanded him disdainfully. ‘I’ll tell you what you’re getting.’

He thought of Hest less frequently than he once had, and in the last few days when he had contrasted his old lover to Carson, Hest seemed like a fading ghost. Thoughts of him triggered regret, but not in the way they once had. Sedric regretted not that he had lost Hest, but that he had ever found him.