When they had left Trehaug, there had been thirteen dragons, for she had not counted Relpda or Spit as dragons then. Now fourteen gathered here still, despite the loss of Heeby. Fourteen dragons, all stronger and more capable than when they had left Trehaug. Fourteen dragons who would not be considered as anything less than dragons ever again.

They waded purposefully out to the barge in the strengthening dawn. She smelled smoke; someone on board had started a cook fire. On deck, Carson and Sedric looked down on them. The Bingtown man’s heart shone in his eyes as he smiled down on the beauty of his dragon. He, at least, had a proper attitude for a human to bear toward dragons.

“Awake and attend us!” Mercor trumpeted, shattering the quiet of the dawn. A flock of waterfowl, startled, flew up from a bank of reeds. Squawking, they fled upriver. Kalo set his shoulder to the barge and gave it a sudden shove. “Awake!” he roared. The humans inside shrieked louder than the ducks, while the two men on deck clutched at the railing in fear.

“Patience, Kalo,” Mercor counseled him quietly. “You will frighten them witless and then we shall get no sense or satisfaction from them.”

Perhaps that warning was too late, Sintara thought, for the humans came boiling out of the ship’s interior like termites from a crushed mound. The variety of sounds they made impressed her; some cursed, one wept, several were shouting, and the captain came out roaring threats at anyone who endangered Tarman. Alise was at his side, equally incensed. Waves of concern for her mate and the ship flowed off her wordlessly. No, Sintara thought. No, she hadn’t been mistaken. Despite the correctness of her attitude toward dragons, Alise was not a fit keeper or material for an Elderling. She had so quickly transferred all her loyalty to a human mate and a liveship. She watched the woman who had once professed to worship her as she ran her hands along the ship’s silvery railing as if she were soothing a flustered cat.

“Silence!” Leftrin roared at the humans on his vessel. Then he leaned over the railing and glared at Mercor. “If you’ve a problem with me or any of my crew, then speak it to me and hold me responsible. Touch my ship again, any of you, and I’ll put a harpoon in you.”

“Have you a harpoon?” Mercor asked in such intense curiosity that Sintara heard someone, perhaps Thymara, give out a wildly nervous giggle before stifling herself.

The captain didn’t answer his question. “What is your grievance, dragon?”

“Last night, one of your company came among us as we slept and sought to do harm to Kalo. Not just harm, but to take from him blood and scales, to sell to other humans.”

Leftrin didn’t dispute the truth. “It wasn’t me or any member of my crew.”