![]() Thymara’s tree was one of uncounted thousands that made up the Rain Wild Forest. Her cheek was pressed tight to the rough skin of the tree as her gaze devoured the drama unfolding below her. Her glossy black hair was confined to a dozen tight braids that were knotted at the back of her neck. And like them, she clung with the full length of her body, fingers and toes dug into the wide cracks in the bark, thighs hugging the limb. Her belly was pressed to it as if she were one of the slender brown tree lizards that shared her perch. ” She was stretched out along a drooping branch that no other experienced limbsman would have trusted. The scrawny girl dug her black claws deeper into the bark. If you fell down there, they might mistake you for just another piece of meat. Her father’s cautioning voice reached her from where he perched like a bird on a thicker branch closer to the trunk of the immense tree that they shared. She grinned back at her father with all the confidence of her eleven years and then returned her gaze to the scene below her. He had known how much she would enjoy being here, and he scheduled their jaunt accordingly. She glanced at her father, and he grinned at her. Yet here she was, and on the very day that Tintaglia had decreed that the dragon cocoons be uncovered. She did not usually accompany her father down to the lower levels of Trehaug, let alone make the journey to Cassarick. It was the best good luck that had ever favored her, she thought, as she clung to the lowest branch of a tree at the edge of the serpents’ beach. Luck brought Thymara to the right place at the right time. The last two birds I received from you were infested with lice and spread it to one of my coops. The Rain Wild Traders’ Council looks forward with pleasure to your attendance as our dragons emerge.Ĭlean your nesting boxes and paint the walls of your coop with fresh limewash. At the direction of the most exalted and queenly dragon Tintaglia, the cases will be exposed to sunlight on the 15th day of the Greening Moon, forty-five days hence. You are invited to send whatever representatives you wish to be present on the occasion of the Rain Wild dragons emerging from their cases. ![]() Within the sealed scroll, a message of Great Importance from the Rain Wild Traders’ Council at Trehaug to the Bingtown Traders’ Council. Year the 1st of the Independent Alliance of Tradersįrom Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug Year the 7th of the Reign of the Most Noble and Magnificent Satrap Cosgo ” Then he climbed the rest of the way up to his deck, pulled off his leaking boot, and flung it back into the river for it to devour. For several long moments, as he paused on the ladder, the possibilities unfolded in his mind like flowers opening to the early dawn light. Keep it, and use it for myself and my ship. A radical new thought was born in his mind. The painted gaze of Tarman’s gleaming black eyes met his own, and he froze. Leftrin was still pondering the best way to convert the wizardwood log into wealth as he set his muddy foot on the first rung of the ladder. If he was curious as to where Leftrin had been or why, he gave no sign of it. He nodded to his captain and blew a smoke ring by way of greeting. ![]() On the bow, silent, hulking Eider was perched on the railing, smoking his morning pipe. ![]() The tillerman always was two thoughts ahead of the rest of the crew. ![]() Some thoughtful soul had tossed a rope ladder down the bow for him. Time to be aboard and away before any of them wondered what their captain had been up to on his morning stroll. He could smell flatcakes cooking and coffee brewing. A few blisters he could live with an open wound would quickly ulcerate and hobble him for weeks.Īs he emerged from the undergrowth into the relatively open space alongside the river, he smelled the smoke of the galley stove and heard the voices of his crew. The stinging inside his boot had become a burning. But if he could arrange it, and if he was neither robbed nor murdered on the trip north or on his way home, then he could emerge from his adventure as a very wealthy man. His river barge could never make such a trip. To say nothing of keeping such a cargo hidden, and also arranging secret transport from the mouth of the Rain Wild River north to Chalced. If he said it quickly, it almost sounded simple, as if it would not involve hoists and pulleys just to move it from where it was wedged and load it on his barge. Surely the remains of the half-formed dragon inside it would fetch an amazing price there. If Leftrin chose that path, he need do no more than find a way to get the ponderously heavy log intact to Chalced. ![]()
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