He finally turned his attention from the skies and fixed her with his popeyed gaze. "Every life has a destiny, Estarra. The trick is to discover it before the end of your life. Otherwise, you will die with too many regrets." With a strange smile, he glanced up to the skies. "Perhaps the purpose of my life was to give another wyvern a bad taste of human flesh." He spread his hands, keeping a precarious balance on the thin green fronds. "Who knows?"

Brushing a hand across her face to wipe away sweat, she pulled back her clump of braids. "I was hoping to do something a little more... substantial than that." She and Rossia both turned their heads upward to stare watchfully into the skies again.

"So was I," he said.

22

BENETO

Corvus Landing was far from the chaos of the hydrogue war, and that was fine with Beneto. His job here was important, and every day brought proof of how much the colonists appreciated him.

The fledgling settlement provided no vital exports to the Hanseatic League; after fourteen years, though, at least they no longer relied on merchant ships for every need. Their farmers grew enough food to support the small population.

Sam Hendy, the town's mayor, called everyone at dusk when most of the day's work had been completed, though some settlers still had emergency labor that would carry them far into the night. Mayor Hendy, a middle-aged man with a potbelly despite vigorous exercise, did not stand much on ceremony.

Beneto entered the communal hall, a low-lying structure designed to divert the harsh winds that whistled across the Corvus prairies. A bank of thick windows looked out upon the flat landscape. The town inhabitants gathered inside the echoing hall to discuss the previous day's disastrous weather.

A furious storm had swept over the settlement with roaring winds and pelting sleet. The colonists were still picking up the pieces of broken boundary fences and automated irrigation systems, assessing the damage to outbuildings and generators, estimating crop losses. Some things could be patched up quickly; others would require careful tending.

Sam Hendy sat at a desk beside a secretary who took notes as each family reported what the storm had done to their holdings. Eight homes and eleven outbuildings had been damaged by the wind and furious hail.

The mayor's inspectors had spent the day wandering the fields looking at the wheat and corn that had been smashed by the weather. "Some of it can be salvaged," he said, always optimistic. "We've planted resilient grains, and many of the fields will recover."