The Dragon Keeper
Page 153

She glanced at Sedric and realized that once more, he’d only heard half of a conversation. She interpreted hastily. “The dragons want to go to Kelsingra. The place that Alise has been talking about to the silver. It’s the name of a city, an Elderling city, that they all seem to recall.”
She sensed restlessness in the air and saw another of the dragons fling up his head, turn, and abruptly move toward the river’s edge. “They’ve finished eating. We’d best get this fellow’s tail bandaged and gather our gear. I’m sure our barge will give us the signal we’re to leave soon. This morning they told us they wanted us to leave as early as possible.”
As if her words had sparked it, dragon after dragon was leaving the feeding grounds and striding toward the river. It was the first time she had seen the dragons move with such concerted purpose. She kept her hand on the silver, as if that could detain him. She saw Tats coming with a bucket of clean water. “Are they just going down to drink?” she asked him, as if he would know the answer. She’d seen the dragons wallow and even drink the river water, something that would have meant eventual death for a human.
But he looked after the departing dragons with the same puzzlement she shared. “Maybe,” he said.
But before another word could escape his mouth, the silver dragon lifted his head high. He stared after the others, and Thymara felt a shimmer of excitement from him that infected her whole body. “Kelsingra!” he trumpeted suddenly, a blast of sound and emotion that sent her reeling. Even Sedric recoiled from it, staggering back and lifting his hands to his ears. It was well that he had, for the dragon wheeled away from Thymara’s touch and suddenly lurched after his departing fellows. With no regard for the humans, he trampled through them, narrowly missing Tats as he leaped to one side and shouldering Alise as he passed. The Bingtown woman was knocked off her feet and landed heavily on the ground. Thymara expected her to cry out in pain. Instead, she caught her breath and shouted, “His tail! We didn’t bandage it up. Sedric, head him off! Don’t let him get into the river!”
“Are you mad? I’m not getting in front of a hurrying dragon!” Alise’s friend stood clutching his medicine case to his chest.
“Are you all right?” Thymara asked her, hastening to her side. Tats was already there, kneeling by the supine woman. Sedric hastily knelt and opened his case of supplies, and Thymara half expected him to offer bandages, but he appeared to be checking the contents for damage. His face was anxious.
“Sedric, please, go after him. Stop him. The river water will eat into his tail!” Alise commanded him.
He shut the case with a snap and looked after the retreating dragons. “Alise, I don’t think anyone can stop that creature. Or any of them. Look at them go. They’re like a flock of birds on the wing.”
They were not the only ones shocked by the dragons’ abrupt departure. Thymara heard the voices of other keepers lifted in alarm and surprise. All up and down the mudflats, humans trotted after their large charges, shouting to them and to one another. On the barge, a man called a warning to another man on the shore and pointed at the dragons.
Alise sat up with a groan, rubbing her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
Thymara asked her again.
“I’m bruised, but no more than that, I don’t think. What got into him? What got into all of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re not stopping,” Tats observed in awe. “Look at them.”
Thymara had thought that when they reached the river, they would halt there. For so long, their lives had been bordered by the forest at the back of the clearing and the river that flowed past it. But now the lead dragons waded out into the shallows and headed upstream. The smaller and less able ones didn’t hesitate, but followed them out into the water. Even the silver and the dirty copper dragon followed the herd out into the murky gray water.
“Help me up!” Alise demanded of Sedric. “We have to follow them.”
“Do you think they’re leaving here, just like that? Now? With no thought, no preparations?”
“Well, they haven’t much to pack,” the Bingtown woman said, and laughed at her own feeble jest. She sat up, then gasped and clutched at her shoulder. She caught her breath raggedly and cried out, “Sedric, stop gaping at me. Yes, they’re leaving. Couldn’t you feel it? ‘Kelsingra!’ they shouted, and suddenly off they went. They’ll leave us behind if we don’t hurry.”
“Now wouldn’t that be tragic,” Sedric observed wryly, but he offered Alise his hand and helped her to her feet.