“I bear written authorizations from the dragon keepers and the hunters Carson and Davvie to collect the second half of their wages, as was agreed would be paid upon the successful completion of their task. I also request that the rest of the contract money for the liveship Tarman and his crew be paid in full this day.” He opened his shoulder satchel as he spoke. The authorizations were all on a single sheet of Alise’s precious paper, rolled and tied with a string. He pulled the string free, extracted the keepers’ contracts, and stepped forward to set them on the Council table.

Trader Polsk and several of the other Council members had been nodding. She ran her eyes over the papers and then slid them down the table. As the papers moved from member to member, they kept nodding. But when they reached the last member of the Council, and Leftrin did not resume speaking, the agreeable bobs slowed and then stopped. Trader Polsk glanced at her committee members and then fixed him with a gaze. “And the rest of your report, Captain Leftrin?”

“Report?” He raised one eyebrow at her.

“Well, of course. What did you find? Where did you leave the dragons and their keepers? Did you indeed locate Kelsingra? How far from here, and what are the river conditions along the way? What are the salvage possibilities? We’ve many questions that need answering.”

He was silent for a moment, framing his reply carefully. No sense in angering them too soon. How best to approach this? Directly.

“I’d prefer to settle this contract before we move on to casual conversation. Perhaps we can discuss my sharing the expedition’s findings after we’ve received our pay, Trader Polsk.” And perhaps not, he thought.

She straightened in her seat. “That seems highly unusual, Captain.”

He shook his head slowly. “Not at all. I prefer to finish with one contract before negotiating another.”

Her voice was acerbic. “I am sure the Council agrees with me that hearing your report is an important part of ‘finishing’ this contract. I do not believe we have discussed the possibility of another contract.”

Alise had helped him prepare for just this moment. He opened the shoulder bag again and extracted his copy of their original contract. He unrolled it and feigned reading through it, his brow wrinkled as if puzzled. Then he looked at Trader Polsk over the document. He made his voice almost apologetic. “Nothing in our contract specified that a report was due to the Council on our return.”

There. As if on cue, a man at the end of the table drew a sheaf of papers toward him and began to leaf through them. Leftrin tried to save him the trouble. “If you read the contract, Trader Polsk, you’ll find that my crew and I, and the keepers and the hunters you hired, have all fulfilled each designated task as negotiated. The dragons were removed from the area. The creatures were fed and tended on the journey. We found an appropriate area for their resettlement, and there they are settled.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve fulfilled our end of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. The final payments are due.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “That’s all.”

“It can scarcely be all!” This came not from Trader Polsk but from a younger man seated at the far end of the table. When he turned his face, the light of the hanging globes danced along a fine line of orange scaling on his brows. “This is no sort of a report at all! How can we be sure of a thing you’ve said? Where is the hunter Jess Torkef who was to accompany your expedition and represent the Councils’ best interest? He was to take notes and make charts as the expedition advanced. Why hasn’t he accompanied you here today?”

Exactly the question Leftrin had been waiting to hear. “Jess Torkef is dead.” Leftrin delivered the news without regret but took close interest in the expressions it startled from the various Council members. As Alise had told him to expect, a woman Trader in a dark-green robe looked stricken; she attempted to exchange a look with the orange-scaled fellow, but he was staring at Leftrin in horror. He paled as Leftrin added, “I cannot be responsible for anything that Torkef agreed to; his contract is voided by his death.” He paused only a moment before revealing, “One distressing thing I will disclose. Jess Torkef died trying to kill a dragon. He intended to butcher her and sell the parts of her body. To the Chalcedeans.”

He heard a gasp from Malta, but he did not turn to look at her. He needed to watch the reaction of the Council members. When no one spoke, he pointed out the obvious. “Either Jess Torkef was a traitor to this Council that hired him, or the ‘best interests’ of the Council were different from what I was led to believe and did not coincide with those of the dragons and their keepers.” He looked at each Council member in turn. The Trader in green gripped the edge of the Council table before her. Horrified fury was building on Trader Polsk’s face. Leftrin spoke to their silence. “Until I know for certain which supposition is true, I’ll be withholding any sort of a report to this Council. And I’ll remind the Council that while my contract stipulated I would keep a log of our journey and make note of any extraordinary discoveries, there was nothing in the contract that said that information had to be shared with the Council on my return. Only that I must gather it.”