Word of their return had preceded him. As the barge approached the city dock, he saw the waiting runner push his wet hair back from his eyes and give a quick nod to himself before darting off among the trees. Captain Leftrin had expected something of the sort. Tarman had encountered some little fishing boats upriver of Cassarick, and two had immediately shot downstream to the treetop city to spread the news: the liveship Tarman was returning from its expedition upriver. The big news would be that no dragons accompanied it.

Leftrin had not given any details of the expedition to the fishermen. To their shouted queries, he’d responded only that he’d tie up in Cassarick soon enough and he’d report everything to the Cassarick Traders’ Council then. Knowledge was power, and he had no intent of sharing that power until he’d used it to his utmost. Let them wait a bit and wonder what had become of the malformed dragons and their keepers. Suspense was an excellent tool for keeping powerful people off balance. It gave one bargaining power. Bargaining power he suspected he was going to need.

A winter rain was falling, shushing the river with a million tiny splashes. Water ran off the decks and back into the gray waters of the wide Rain Wild River. To either side of the river, tall dense forest loomed. The rain pattered on an infinity of leaves there, working its way down from the canopy of the trees through the layers of life and greenery, past all the strata of cottages and mansions built in the mighty tree limbs until at last it fell to the permanently sodden forest floor. It was both very familiar and suddenly strange to come back to the towering trees that lined the river. Kelsingra had shown him a terrain far out of his experience. Dry firm land and rolling hills were nice, but Leftrin suspected this would always be home for him.

He squinted through the rain as they approached the docks. There was a strange vessel tied up there, and he scowled at the look of it. It was long and narrow, of shallow draught, fitted for both sails and oars. Bright blue paint and gold trim on the deckhouse gleamed even through the misty rain. Competition for Tarman? Perhaps the owners might think so, but he doubted it. No other vessel had ever excelled his in navigating the shallower waters of the Rain Wild River. Impervious One he read on her bow. Well, time would tell if that were true. Over his years on the river, he’d seen all sorts of boats that were supposed to be immune to the acid waters of the river. And he’d seen them all sink, eventually. Wizardwood was the only stuff that lasted.