He wondered why he had bothered being evasive with Carson. The man was no fool. The crew’s charade would not have fooled him for long. He knew the boat was sentient, and if he’d had any doubts, Tarman’s rescue of Leftrin last night would have dispersed them. When he’d shouted, the barge had come straight to him, and despite the current, had held himself steady in the river until his captain was safe aboard him again.
Wrapped in a blanket but still dripping, shivering, he’d gone into the galley. “Is Alise all right?” he’d demanded, and the faces of his crew had told him all.
He hadn’t slept since then. And he wouldn’t sleep until he found her.
THE TANGLE OF floating debris was both too thick and not solid enough.
Relpda had carried Sedric to it. Once she had got close to it, she had pushed her way into it like a spoon pushing through thick soup. Driftwood and matted brambles, leafy branches and long, dead logs, freshly torn trees and wads of grasses had given way to her shoving and then closed up behind her. Chesting against the mess, she had either judged it solid or close enough, for she had dropped him. He’d fallen from her jaws athwart a couple of floating logs and started to slip between them. His stiff limbs had screamed as he frantically moved them, thrashing and crawling until he was on the larger and thicker of the logs. There he had clung, and he felt how it bobbed in the current. Worse, he felt how it shifted and threatened to break away from the tangled mess along the shoreline as the frantic dragon pawed and bumped at it as she attempted to clamber on top of it.
“It won’t hold you, Relpda. Stop. Stop tearing it apart. You can’t get on top of this; it’s just floating bits of wood and reeds.” He moved away from her to a part of the raft that her struggles were not affecting so violently. He could feel her rising panic coupled with her weariness and despair. She was tired, and he knew guiltily that if she had abandoned him, her reserves of strength would have been much greater. He wondered again why she had saved him at obvious cost to herself.
Then he wondered why he was doing nothing to save her.
There was a quick and guilty answer to that. Once she had drowned, she’d be out of his head forever. He’d know his thoughts were completely his own again. When he went back to Bingtown, he could live just as he always had and—
He thrust his selfishness aside. He was never going back to Bingtown. He was on a raft of debris over an acidic river. He inspected his stinging arms; the exposed skin looked like cured meat. No telling what the rest of him looked like and he was too cowardly to look. A shudder of chill ran over him. He hugged himself and tried to consider the incomprehensible situation he found himself in. Everything he had depended on in this savage place was gone. No ship, no crewmen, no hunters. No supplies of any kind. Alise was probably already dead, her body floating in the river somewhere. Sorrow smote him; he tried to push it aside. He had to clear his mind, or he’d join her.
What was he going to do? He had no tools, no fire, no shelter, no food, and no knowledge of how to get any of that for himself. He looked at the copper. He’d told her the truth. He had no idea of how he could save her. If the dragon died, the river would wash her away, and then he would die, too. Probably slowly. And alone. With no way to move up or down the river.
Right now, the dragon represented his only chance at getting out of here. She was his only ally. She’d risked her life for him. And asked so little of him in return.
Relpda gave a short trumpet, and he looked back at her. She’d pushed her way deeper into the floating wreckage. She’d hooked one of her forelegs over the end of a substantial log and was struggling to lift her other front leg over, but she was at the narrow end of the long, dead tree. As she put her weight on it, the log bobbed under. The log was threatening to slip out from under her and shoot up into the air. And the danger was great that she would sink beneath the floating debris.
“Relpda, wait. You need to center yourself on the log. Wait. I’m coming.” He stared at her situation, trying to think how to remedy it. Sinking dragon, floating wood. He wondered if his weight on the high end of the log would be enough to hold it down while she put the other leg over.
She didn’t listen to him, of course. She kept giving small hoots of effort while trying to hook her other front leg over the log. Her struggles were tearing at the matted debris. Pieces of it were breaking free from the outer edge and whirling back out into the river’s current.
He tried again, focused himself at her. “Beauteous one, you must allow me to help you. Be still for a moment. Be still. Let me weight the log down for you. I’m coming now, lovely creature, queen of queens. I am here to serve you. You must not tear the packed wood apart. It might carry you away from me, down the river. Be as still as you can while I think of what to do.”