The Rain Wild Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection

‘Wings. Fly! Fly!’ The words were muffled and ill formed, but the longing of the dim-witted dragon who uttered them filled them with feeling.

‘Kelsingra,’ someone else groaned.

Sintara lowered her head, tucking it in close to her chest. She was ashamed for them and ashamed for herself. They sounded like penned cattle lowing before the slaughter begins. ‘Then go there,’ she muttered in disgust. ‘Just leave and go there.’

‘Would that we could,’ Mercor spoke the words with true longing. ‘But the way is long, even if we had wings that would bear us. And the path is uncertain. As serpents, we could barely find our way home. How much stranger must the land be now that lies between us and the place where Kelsingra used to be?’

‘Used to be,’ Kalo repeated. ‘So much used to be, and no longer is. It is useless to speak or think of any of it. I want to go back to sleep.’

‘Useless, perhaps, but nonetheless, we do speak of it. And some of us still dream of it. Just as some of us still dream of flying, and killing our own meat and battling for mates. Some of us still dream of living. You do not want to sleep, Kalo. You want to die.’

Kalo twitched as if struck by an arrow. Sintara felt the big dragon stiffen, sensed how his poison sacs suddenly swelled. A few moments ago, she had thought that resting between the two large males had been a place of safety. Now she perceived that she was in the thick of the danger, trapped between Sestican and Mercor. Kalo lifted his head high and glared down on Mercor. If he spat acid now, Mercor would be helpless to avoid it. And she would also be caught in the spray. She hunched her shoulders uselessly.

But Kalo spoke rather than exhaled poison. ‘Do not speak to me, Mercor. You know nothing of what I think or feel.’

‘Don’t I? I know more of you than you recall yourself, Kalo.’ Mercor suddenly threw his head back and bellowed. ‘I know you all! All of you! And I mourn what you are because I remember what you were and I know what you were meant to be!’

‘Quiet! We’re trying to sleep!’ This was no bellow of an outraged dragon, but the shrill cry of a frustrated human. Kalo turned his head toward the source of the sound and gave a roar of fury. Sestican, Ranculos and Mercor suddenly echoed him. When that blast of sound died away, a few of the dimmer dragons on the edge of the herd imitated it.

‘You be silent!’ Kalo trumpeted up at the human dwellings. ‘Dragons speak when they wish to speak! You have no control over us!’

‘Ah, but they do,’ Mercor said quietly. The very softness of his words seemed to bring all attention to him.

Kalo turned his head sharply. ‘You, perhaps, are controlled by humans. I am not.’

‘You do not, then, eat when they feed you? You do not remain here, where they have corralled us? You do not accept the future they plan for us, that we will remain here, dependent upon them, until we slowly die off and stop being a nuisance to them?’

Sintara found that, against her will, she was listening raptly to his words. They were frightening and challenging at the same time. When his voice stopped, the quieter sounds of the evening flowed in. She listened to the river lapping at the muddy shore, to the distant noises of humans and birds settling in the trees for the night, and to the sounds of dragons breathing. ‘What should we do then?’ she heard herself ask.

All heads turned toward her. She did not look at anyone except Mercor. The night had stolen the colours from his scales but she could make out his gleaming black eyes. ‘We should leave,’ he said quietly. ‘We should leave here and try to find our way to Kelsingra. Or to anywhere that is better than this.’

‘How?’ Sestican abruptly demanded. ‘Shall we knock down the trees that hem us in? Humans can slip between their trunks and find pathways through the swamp. But if you have not noticed, we are slightly larger than humans. Grest went blundering off, going not where he willed but only where the trees would permit him passage. There is no escape that way, only swamp and dimness and starvation. And poorly fed as we are, at least the humans bring us something to eat each day. If we left here, we’d starve.’

‘There’s no need for us to starve at all. We should eat the humans,’ someone on the edge of the herd suggested.

‘Be quiet if you cannot make sense,’ Sestican retorted. ‘If we eat the humans, once they are gone, we are still trapped here, with no food.’

‘They want us to leave.’ Kalo spoke suddenly, startling everyone.

‘Who does?’ Mercor demanded.

‘The humans. Their Rain Wild Council sent a man to speak. One of the feeders asked me to talk with him. He told the Council-man that I am the biggest of the dragons and therefore the leader. So he spoke to me. He wanted to know if I knew when or even if Tintaglia would return. I told him I did not. Then he said that they were very upset that someone had eaten a corpse out of the river, and that someone else had chased a worker down into the tunnels that go to the buried city. And he said they were running out of ways to feed us. He said that his hunters have hunted out all the large meat for miles around, and that the fish runs are nearly over for the year. He said the Council wishes us to call Tintaglia, to let her know that the Council demands that she return to help them solve this difficulty.’

In the darkness, several of the dragons snorted with contempt for such foolishness.

Mercor spoke with disdain. ‘Call Tintaglia. As if she would respond to us. Kalo, why did you not speak of this before?’

‘They told me nothing that we do not all know already. Why bother repeating it? They are the ones who refuse to accept what they already know. Tintaglia’s not coming back,’ Kalo confirmed bitterly. ‘She has no reason to. She has found a mate. Together they are free to fly and hunt wherever they will. In a decade or two, when her time is ripe, she will lay her eggs and when they hatch, there will be a new generation of serpents growing. She has no need of us any longer. She only helped us stay alive because we were her last resort. And now we are not. If Tintaglia had had a mate at the time we emerged from our cases, she would have despised us. She knows as well as we all do that we are not fit to live.’

‘But live we do!’ Mercor broke in angrily on Kalo’s rant. ‘And dragons we are. Not slaves, not pets. Nor are we cattle, for humans to slaughter and butcher and sell off to the highest bidder.’

Sestican flared the diminutive spikes on his neck. ‘Who even dares think of such a thing!’

‘Oh, let us not be fools as well as cripples,’ Mercor returned sarcastically. ‘There are plenty of humans who are unable to comprehend us when we speak to them. And some of them judge us little more than beasts, and unhealthy ones at that. I’ve overheard their words; there are those who would buy our flesh, our scales, our teeth, any parts of our bodies for their elixirs and potions. What do you think happened to that poor fool Gresok? Kalo and Ranculos know, even if Kalo chooses to pretend ignorance. Humans killed him, thinking to butcher him for trophies. They did not know we would be able to sense him dying. How many of them were there, Kalo? Enough humans to make you a good meal even after you’d devoured Gresok?’

‘There were three.’ Ranculos was the one who spoke. ‘Three we caught, and one who fled.’

‘Were they Rain Wilders?’ Mercor demanded.

Ranculos blew out a snort of disdain. ‘I did not ask them. They were guilty of slaying a dragon, and I saw that they paid for it.’

‘A pity we do not know. We might have a better idea of how much we can trust the Rain Wilders if we knew. Because we are going to need their help, much as it distresses me to say so.’

‘Their help? Their help is next to worthless. They bring us food that is half rotted or merely the scraps of their kill. And there is never enough of it. What can humans help us with?’

Mercor’s reply was deceptively placid. ‘They can help us go to Kelsingra.’

A chorus of dragons replied all at once.

‘Kelsingra may not even exist any more.’

‘We don’t know where it is. Our memories are of small use in finding our way there. We could not have found our way here to the cocooning grounds unassisted. Everything is changed.’

‘Why would humans help us go to Kelsingra?’

‘Kelsingra! Kelsingra! Kelsingra!’ prattled the depraved dragon at the edge of the huddle.

‘Make that fool be silent!’ Kalo roared, and there was a sudden yelp of pain as someone did just that. ‘Why would humans help us go to Kelsingra?’ he repeated.

‘Because we would make them think it was their own idea. Because we would make them want to take us there.’

‘How? Why?’

It was full dark now. Even Sintara’s keen eyes could not see Mercor’s face but his amusement filled his voice. ‘We would make them greedy. You have seen how willingly they dig and delve here in the hopes of unearthing Elderling treasure. We would tell them that Kelsingra was three times the size of Cassarick and that the Elderling treasury was there.’

‘Elderling treasury?’ Kalo asked.

‘We would lie to them,’ Mercor explained patiently. ‘To make them want to take us there. We know they want to be rid of us. If we leave it to them, they will let us slowly starve to death or leave us living in our own filth until disease claims us. This way, we offer them the chance to be rid of us, and to profit at the same time. They will be willing to help us, because they will think we are guiding them to riches.’

‘But we don’t know the way,’ Kalo bellowed in frustration. ‘And if they knew of an Elderling city to plunder, they would have done so by now. So they don’t know where Kelsingra is either.’ He lowered his voice and added dismally, ‘Everything is changed, Mercor. Kelsingra may be buried under mud and trees just as Trehaug and Cassarick are now. Even if we could find our way back to it, what good would it do us?’

‘Kelsingra was at a much higher elevation than either Trehaug or Cassarick. Do not you recall the view from the mountain cliffs behind the city? Perhaps the mud that flowed and buried these cities did not cover Kelsingra. Or perhaps it was upstream of the mudflow. Anything is possible. It is even conceivable that Elderlings survived there. Not dragons, no, for if any of the dragons had lived, we would have heard them by now. But the city may still be there, and the fertile croplands, and the plain beyond teeming with antelope and other herd beasts. It may all be there, just waiting for us to return.’

‘Or nothing might be there,’ Kalo replied sourly.

‘Well, nothing is what we have here, so what do we have to lose?’ Mercor demanded stolidly.

‘Why do we need the humans’ help at all?’ Sintara asked into the quiet. ‘If we wish to go to Kelsingra, why don’t we just go?’