“Thank you.” The words seemed inadequate, but she didn’t have anything better to offer her.
“It was nothing,” she replied. “Harrikin and I are actually getting good at it. I never expected to learn how to float a dragon.” She smiled, glanced at Thymara with red-rimmed eyes, and then away.
“Mercor and Ranculos?” Thymara asked. She would not mention Rapskal’s name. Sharing the pain didn’t help it.
“Mercor is weary but otherwise fine. I’ve asked him if he ever recalled anything like this happening before. Once, he said, one of his ancestors was foolish enough to fly around a mountain that he knew was about to explode. It was a tall one, covered with glaciers and snow, and he wanted to see what would happen when the fire met the ice. When it did erupt, the ice and snow melted instantly and flowed down the mountain, taking stone and muck with it in a thick soup. He said it flowed swift and far, almost out of sight. He wonders if that is what happened, somewhere far away from us, and the wave of it only reached us now.”
Thymara was silent, trying to imagine such a thing. She shook her head. What Sylve was suggesting was on a scale far beyond anything she could imagine. A whole mountain melting and flowing away, clear out of sight? Was such a thing possible?
“And your dragon, Ranculos?” she asked Harrikin.
“Ranculos was clipped by a log in the first tumble of the wave. He’s bruised badly, but at least his skin isn’t broken so the water isn’t eating into him.” Sylve answered for him. Harrikin nodded slowly to her words. He’d become very still, and in repose he reminded Thymara even more of a lizard, right down to his jeweled unblinking eyes.
“You found a boat and rescued Tats?”
“It was random luck. I’d left my dish in the boat. The fish was nearly cooked, and I went back to get it. I climbed in and was sorting through my stuff when the wave hit. I held tight to the boat and eventually it came out on top of the water and upright. All I had to do was bail. But it snatched all my gear out. I don’t have a thing except what I’m wearing.”
Slowly it came to Thymara that the same was true for her. She had not thought her spirits could sink lower, but they did.
“Does anyone have anything left?” she asked, thinking desolately of her hunting gear, her blanket, even her dry pair of socks. All gone.
“We recovered three boats, but I don’t think anything was in any of them. Not even oars. We’ll have to make something that works. Greft has his fire pouch still, but it’s of small use right now. Where would we set a fire? I dread tonight when the mosquitoes come. We’re going to be miserable until the water goes down. And even then, well, my friends, we’ve hard times to face.”