Before anyone else could react, Fente propelled herself out into the open river. She shook herself all over, opened her wings wide, and threw back her head. When she launched her toxin with a trumpet like a woman screaming, the cloud was smaller but more dense. Again and again, she shrieked it forth, until on her fourth try there was no visible sign of poison. Nonetheless, she turned to all of them and proclaimed, “Make no mistake. You may all be larger than I am, but I am just as deadly as any of you are. Respect me!”
“It would be wiser to save your toxins for hunting rather than making a show of them,” Mercor rebuked her mildly. “You have no way of knowing how long it will take you to recover them. If you saw game right now, it would escape you.”
The small green dragon spun to face them. Now the layered fronds of her immature mane stood out stiffly around her neck. She shivered them, a move more serpent than dragon. “Don’t preach to me about wisdom, golden one. Nor hunting. I do not need your advice. Now that I have my poison again, I am not sure that I even need your company.”
“Or your keeper?” Ranculos asked in mild curiosity.
“That remains to be seen,” she snapped. “Tats grooms me, and it pleases me to hear him praise me. I may keep him. But having a keeper does not mean I must stay in company with you or those other raggle-taggle keepers. Nor do I need to be near keepers so disrespectful they speak of butchering a dragon as if he were a cow.” She beat her wings, stirring air and spattering water. “I have my poison and soon I will be able to fly. Then I will need nothing of anyone save myself.”
“So Heeby spoke of flying, too,” Sestican said quietly.
“Heeby. That’s not even her true name. She couldn’t even summon her true name. Heeby. That’s a name for a dog or a rather stupid horse. Not a dragon.”
“Speak no ill,” Mercor advised her. “Her end might be the same one we all meet.”
“She didn’t end because she never began,” Fente retorted. “Half a dragon is no dragon at all.”
Privately, Sintara agreed with her. The dimmer dragons still distressed her in a way she could not explain. To be around a creature with the shape of a dragon but to have no sense of that creature thinking the thoughts of a dragon was unsettling. One night she had overheard some of the keepers telling “ghost” stories to one another and wondered if that were not the same sensation. Something was there, but not there. A familiar shape with no substance to it.
And that was exactly what she saw now as the silver dragon with no name laboriously paddled out into the river. His tail had long healed, but he still held it stiffly as if the skin were too tight. His body had muscled from travel, and since his keepers had wormed him, he had put on healthier flesh. But his legs were still stumpy and short. The wings he now spread were almost normal, however. All the dragons watched in silence as he lifted them carefully, flapped them several times in imitation of Fente, and then drew back his head. When he snapped it forward, jaws wide, Sintara saw that his teeth were twice the size of Fente’s and double rowed. And the cloud of toxin that came forth with his guttural roar was thick and nearly purple. The droplets were large and they fell, hissing, onto the river’s surface. Sintara turned her face away from the acrid scent of strong venom.
“This half a dragon,” the silver said, “can make you no dragon at all.” He turned to glare at them, making sure they understood the threat. “Name? I TAKE a name. Spit my name. My name what I do. Fente, say my name.”
The small green dragon spun away from him. She tried to remove herself in a dignified way, but dragons were not designed for swimming. She looked hasty and awkward as she scuttled out of his range. Spit laughed, and when Fente turned her head to hiss at him, he released a small cloud of floating toxins at her. The river wind wafted it away before it could do her any harm. Even so, Mercor reacted to it.
“Spit, save your venom. One of our hunters is gone, and our keepers have lost several of their boats and almost all their weapons. They are not going to be able to hunt as productively as they once did. All of us must strive harder to make our own kills. Save your venom for that.”
“Maybe I eat Fente,” Spit suggested poisonously. But then he turned and paddled back to the shallower water. He waded out onto the muddy shore and with a fine disregard for the filth, flung himself down to sleep. Sintara suddenly envied him. It would be so good to lie down. She could sleep. When she woke, Thymara and Alise could clean her. She was already dirty, so a bit more mud wouldn’t make any difference. And it was time they both showed some gratitude for her saving them.