Midway through the day, Kendry anchored alongside us. ‘Not sure we have enough,’ Brashen called to his captain in a low voice.
‘We’ll take whatever you can spare,’ the captain replied. He shook his head. He was an older man, older than my father had been, and his face was lined. His eyes were the same as Brashen’s had been when he knelt by Boy-O and looked at his burns. His voice was thick with sorrow. ‘He’s been in agony for years now. Time to release him.’
Evidently Kendry had not been sailed for a time, for there was much less to unload from him. As they loaded their few goods onto Tarman, his captain spoke to his sparse crew, thanking them for bringing the difficult ship up the river. He grimly wished them good fortune in finding work again. It was Captain Leftrin who gruffly noted that the Dragon Traders had two impervious ships that could use experienced river crew.
‘I’d almost forgotten that Kelsingra had a couple of those,’ Kendry’s captain replied speculatively.
‘They haven’t been used much since we captured them. Tarman’s better on the river, shallow draught and all. But when his turn comes …’ They both fell silent.
Kendry’s captain nodded grimly, and Captain Leftrin added, ‘We’ll have a surplus of captains for a time, but experienced crew is always welcome.’
‘So. Tarman will change, too?’
‘He’s not decided yet. At present, he’s our lifeline. But if we get the impervious ships crewed, well …’ Captain Leftrin stroked the railing of his barge as if he were ruffling a boy’s hair. ‘He is the one who must decide,’ he finished.
‘Leftrin. We’re ready,’ Wintrow said.
It still took some time. The day was fine and the wind blew the sweet fragrance of flowers across the water as the crew said their farewells to Vivacia. There were tears. Some of the crew had been aboard her for most of their lives. And then there was a shifting of lines and anchor chains, both to bring the figurehead alongside Tarman’s deck and to make it possible to salvage the chain and anchors afterwards. Traders, I saw, wasted very little. If there had been more time I think they would have taken every scrap of canvas and line off her, but there was a limit to what Tarman could hold.
On Kendry’s decks, his crew waited uncertainly. The figurehead had his arms crossed over his manly chest, muscles bulging with tension. He was scowling as he looked about. Then his gaze met mine. He hunched his shoulders as if embarrassed and tried for a smile. It was more frightening than his scowl had been.
My friends joined me on top of the deckhouse. Tarman’s decks filled with Vivacia’s crew. Amber was weeping; I didn’t know why. Vivacia’s figurehead picked a cask from our deck. In her hands it was like a very large mug. She studied it and then, with an incredible strength, she broke the top with her thumb, raised it and began to drink. Her colours brightened as if she had been freshly painted. Everywhere that she had been built from wizardwood, varnish and paint flaked away. Planks and railings shone with an unusual sheen.
A second keg. A third. ‘It did not take that much for Paragon,’ Per said.
‘He was desperate,’ Boy-O said. ‘He had to change or die. I think that’s why his dragons were so small. He became as much as he could with that small amount of Silver.’
Vivacia was reaching for another cask. She caught my eye and winked at me. I glanced away. That was six casks. I could feel Kendry’s tension shimmering across to me. Almost half the casks were gone.
With every cask she drank, she changed slightly. Her face was not so human as it had been. Her wizardwood planks were scaled now. She chose another keg. As she began to drink it, I heard a popping, crackling noise. She dropped the empty cask into the river and gave a shudder, like a horse with a fly on her withers.
‘Ware!’ shouted Captain Leftrin, but there was nowhere to flee as Vivacia’s mast fell like a cut tree. Only good fortune put most of it on the far side of her hull. Spars, lines, rigging came down like a wind-toppled tree. I crouched, my arms over my head, but the bulk of it missed us. The fallen mast and spars dragged the canvas away from us as the river’s current tried to carry it off. For a few moments all was frantic activity as sailors cleared fallen lines from Tarman’s railing. There was shouting, the thud of hatchets cutting lines, and a lurching as the debris of the ship tugged at Tarman. I looked for Vivacia. I saw only wreckage churning in the river’s current.
Then it was floating away down the river, a sloppy raft of wood and canvas. For a moment, Vivacia’s afthouse was floating among it, and then it began to slowly sink deeper and deeper. ‘Oh, that’s going to be a hazard in the channel,’ someone said, but I wasn’t staring at that. Wallowing among some of the loose wreckage was a large silver dragon. She was twice the size of Paragon’s dragons.
‘Will she drown?’ Althea cried out in a low agonized voice. For the dragon was sinking. Her large head with its glittering blue eyes lingered a moment on the surface and then sank out of sight. Althea screamed, her hands reaching uselessly toward the water.
‘Wait!’ cried Brashen. I held my breath. I could feel the dragon struggling beneath the water. She fought the current, then let it catch her. It carried her downstream. I turned my head that way and suddenly, in a shallower part of the channel, I saw the water stirring and then there was a wild splashing. ‘There!’ I shouted, and pointed. A head, a long neck, a spiny back and then, with a tremendous surge of effort, the silver dragon leapt into the air. Her wide wings spread, scattering water not in droplets but as bucketloads. She beat her wings and for a moment I feared she would fall back into the river. But with every heavy stroke, she rose a little higher. A long tail followed her out of the water.
‘She’s flying!’ Althea cried, and her joy and the wave of joy I felt from the rising dragon were one.
‘I’m so proud of you!’ Boy-O shouted at her. Everyone on the deck laughed and the dragon trumpeted uncertainly.
‘I cannot reach it!’ Kendry cried out, and his roar of despair was equal to Vivacia’s joyful trumpeting. He was listing as his figurehead strained to reach for the remaining kegs on Tarman’s decks.
‘Move those kegs!’ Leftrin ordered and all on deck sprang to his order. ‘Quickly!’ he added, and I felt Tarman’s uneasiness as Kendry leaned on him. It made his deck cant down, and a keg got away from a sailor, rolled across the deck and cracked sharply against the bulwark. Kendry seized it, and it trickled Silver onto Tarman’s deck as he raised it to his mouth.