‘Oh?’ Carson’s voice was slightly cooler.

‘They’ve raised a substantial reward for anyone who can send them news of what’s become of Hest. Wollom adds his own plea. Evidently he thinks that perhaps Hest is hiding here with me, avoiding his old life and his family’s disgrace and living well in Kelsingra.’ His gaze met Carson’s.

The big man turned up an empty hand. ‘No one saw him again after that day. I don’t know, Sedric. I’ve wondered about it more than once, but I just don’t know what became of him. We left him there in the tower. You’ve said he wasn’t a hunter or a fisherman. No food has gone missing. No one, keeper or dragon, has seen him. We’ve told them that.’

Sedric’s hand closed on the paper, crumpling it. ‘You don’t know what became of him. And I don’t care.’ He tossed the message to the ground and the wind off the river gave it a small push. Carson looked at it for a moment, and then put his arm across Sedric’s shoulder.

‘The pigeons are all right for now,’ he said. ‘But what we should give some thought to is where we want to house the chickens.’ The summer sunlight glinted on the two Elderlings as they turned away from the river and walked up into Kelsingra.

‘What do you think is beyond the foothills?’

‘More foothills.’ Tats panted. ‘Then mountains.’

They had paused to catch their breath and drink from their water-skin. The day was warm. Summer was growing strong. Thymara had freed her wings from her tunic and held them half-open to cool herself. Tats and Thymara had been climbing steadily since morning. They both carried their bows, but Thymara was more interested in exploration than hunting today. She turned and looked down over the green-flanked hills to the city below them. Most of it remained still and uninhabited, but there was activity down near the docks. The crew of the White Serpent had taken her out on the river. The oars moved evenly as the ship moved against the current. The wind carried the faint shouts of Rachard as he called the stroke-beat to them. The former slave was the teacher now, and seemed to be adapting well to his new role.

‘Look.’ Thymara pointed in a different direction. ‘Sedric’s trees. The ones he and Carson dug up and moved to the big pots on the Square of the Dragons? You can actually see the leaves on them from here. They almost look like trees now instead of sticks.’

A dragon trumpet, a taunting challenge, turned Thymara’s eyes to the clear blue sky above. ‘Again?’ she groaned aloud.

‘Apparently,’ Tats said with vast approval. He swivelled his head. ‘Where is he?’

Tintaglia was overhead. As they watched, she spiralled upward, ever higher. She trumpeted again, and they heard it answered from the east. They both turned to watch Kalo coming. This was not the leisurely circling of a dragon seeking game, nor the diving fall of a dragon strike. His long powerful wings drove him forward and upward. He looked black against the blue of the sky, except that each down-stroke briefly bared the silver tips of his wings. His long tail snaked and lashed behind him as he flew.

Tintaglia was a glittering blue set of wings in the sky. She hung, circling effortlessly. Her mocking call reached them clearly.

Tats scanned the rest of the sky. ‘I don’t see IceFyre this time.’

‘That last battle was pretty savage. Alise told me that from what she learned when she first studied dragons from scrolls and records, the males seldom did serious injury to one another in mating battles.’

‘I don’t think Kalo read the same scrolls she did. I think that after their last clash, IceFyre conceded. Probably went off to kill something big, eat it and sleep it off.’ Tats nodded to himself. ‘The better dragon won. I’m glad Kalo got a mate.’

Thymara corked the water-skin. ‘Let’s follow that cleft up to the cliffs. I want to look at them and see how hard they’d be to climb.’

Tats stood staring upward. Kalo’s deep frustrated roars were answering Tintaglia’s clear trumpeting. ‘Don’t you want to watch?’ he teased her.

‘Thank you, but half a dozen times was enough. Can’t they be done with it for the day?’

‘I think they’re enjoying it. Wait. What’s that?’

Something had caught his attention in a different quadrant of the sky. Thymara strained her eyes. ‘Sintara. But what’s she doing?’

The younger blue queen was moving faster than Thymara had ever seen her fly. Arrow straight she flew. Then as golden Mercor crested the ridge behind them, Thymara heard Sintara utter the same challenging trumpet that she had first heard from Tintaglia. Scarlet Baliper and orange Dortean suddenly rose from the forested hillside. ‘Oh, this should be good,’ Tats exclaimed and sat down. He flopped back in the meadow grass and stared at the rivals as they closed in on Sintara. ‘Baliper might have a chance against Mercor,’ he speculated. ‘They’re about of a size, but I think Mercor is cleverer. Dortean? I don’t think so.’