[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule

by E. E. Knight - (ebook by Undead)

  “You didn’t fly after us to joke.”

  “No. Flying is wearisome. My mate and I thought we would invite you to our residence. Surely with two lands sharing a long border and a longer history, we have matters to discuss, so that the thralls don’t become restive and take matters into their own bloody little hands. Cooler dragon heads should be called in to resolve things, don’t you agree?”

  “How did you learn I was to be sent to Dairuss?”

  “You’re new to the Grand Alliance. News travels faster than wings. Especially in matters of mating, dueling, or politics.”

  “Again, matters I know little of and care of less. I’m already mated, I’ve had my share of duels and won’t seek another, and as for politics, I don’t know enough to have an opinion.”

  Imfamnia made a noise that was half laugh, half prrum. “An admirable disinterest. To tell you the truth, sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing them myself. What is your mate’s name again?”

  “Natasatch.”

  “Please send her my regards. Should your King Naf there decide to accept you as Protector, I hope we’ll see you in our resort soon. The change of company would be most welcome.”

  “Hail and farewell, King Naf,” she added, switching back to Pari. “I hope the next time I visit your city, no one shoots arrows at me.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your tour, AuRon. It shouldn’t take long, unless you enjoy counting sheep.”

  With that, she trotted away and launched herself into the sky.

  They rested in one of the towns near the Ghioz border, in a broken-down old castle overlooking a village nestled along the Ghioz road through the hills.

  Naf told him a story about the defense of the castle against the Ghioz, long before he was born. Dairuss had lost, of course, but they resisted gallantly while they could.

  He wondered what difference it made in the long run. Sometimes you just had to give up trying to fly if the winds were too strong. He hoped Naf wasn’t nerving himself for another gallant-but-futile resistance to the Hypatians and his brother’s empire.

  Naf wandered into town cloaked. He liked to go among his people disguised, it seemed, and returned with two plucked turkeys and some bread and wine. After eating, AuRon curled up in the foundation of a collapsed tower and slept.

  The beautiful and slightly silly Imfamnia invaded his dreams.

  They were up with the larks the next morning. Naf settled himself rather stiffly into the saddle chair. “Old bones don’t take quickly to new tricks.”

  They flew back northward on the Dairuss side of the Red Mountains.

  “And at last, the west. Hypatia. We bled plenty for them when they were bowing and scraping to the Wizard Anklemere and we were the only men west of the great desert who wouldn’t submit. We won our freedom then—only to lose it shortly after to the Ghioz. It appears my land is fated to remain free for only brief periods in between conquerers. Now, with the Tyr’s dragons at their backs, they’re haughty and demanding.”

  “Are you worried about the dragons?” AuRon asked.

  “Oh, they send smooth talkers over, to tell us all the advantages of joining your Tyr’s ‘Grand Alliance.’ Safety”—he spat. “Security”—he spat again. “Order psht! Those words go like chains about the wrist. Only they’re worse; you can’t see the manacles until they’ve bound you hand and foot like a pig to slaughter.”

  If Naf went on much longer about his brother’s Dragon Empire his shepherds below might think it raining.

  “I know what will happen,” Naf said. “The Hypatians will create some pretext to reclaim us, and we won’t dare resist with dozens of dragons ready to sweep over our poor lands.”

  AuRon knew what it was like to be the weakest of a team of rivals. He’d always thought that the more the hominids fought each other, the better off dragons were—fewer two-legged warriors to go after his kind.

  Hard to think of a good-hearted fellow like Naf being ground up in a war, though.

  “It’s a good land, AuRon. The elven refugees have settled and set up craft houses and theaters and schools and hospitals. We have dwarfs coming to and fro from the Diadem, setting up mines and wells and trading posts. You ever tried dwarf-drink, AuRon? Most refreshing, like beer that doesn’t give you a headache, just the burps. We even have some Ghioz who don’t care for their new Dragon Lords setting up households, and say what you want about the Ghioz, they know how to organize and smooth and build. They’re doing very well as stonemasons and bricklayers. We could be as great a people as we ever were.”

  He didn’t like the idea of flinging himself into the rivalries and politics of the Lavadome, but if it would help Naf… He gulped and took the plunge: “I promise you, my friend, if you’ll join the Grand Alliance, with me as your Protector, I’ll do my best to truly protect your lands. My sister, who’s now serving as Queen Consort to the Tyr, she wants the Alliance to benefit both.”

  “I’ve met her,” Naf said. “She speaks superbly. But she’s just one voice. For every dragon like her, there’s at least one SoRolatan.”

  They traveled over central Dairuss on their way back to the City of the Golden Dome, and Naf had him stop in some marshy country.

  “This is a famous holdout of robbers and partisans fighting against our conquerors. Many a king has removed his throne to these swamps.”

  AuRon had perfected his swamp-feeding technique in the jungles south of NooMoahk’s old cave. (Ah, if he’d only known about the trouble that crystal could cause—he would never have willed it to the blighters when he quit that old library-cavern.) You simply plunge your jaws into the swamp vegetation, suck up a mouthful of roots, stems, leaves, and petals, then hoist your head high in the air and drain the water down your throat. Any number of fish, frogs, crustaceans, worms, bugs, and leeches would then cascade down your throat. Then you’d simply spit out the greenstuff. Not the most tasty meal—stagnant water always made one’s belches reminiscent of sewage—but it filled one with water that could be quickly processed and the food digested quickly without a jumble of bones and joints clogging the gut.

  “A man could get gut-sick on such water,” Naf said.

  “I’ve seen hominid innards. It’s a wonder your food makes it through at all. All those bends and turns.”

  “The scientists say you need more guts for grains and roots. Thanks to all that we can make it through a hard winter without starving on stored food. They keep for months.”

  “So can we. We just get out of the wind, curl up, and sleep and wait for the smell of thaw.”

  “No fun in that,” Naf said. “Winter’s a time of beer tapping and storytelling.” He turned sour. “Or it used to be.”

  AuRon spat out another mouthful of swamp growth, pretty sure he’d swallowed a couple of turtles this time, something was rattling as it went down his throat. “I thought human kings had the best beer and professional storytellers to keep them entertained.”

  “Yes, but I’m always drawn away from my own parties, so the tales and songs are played for others’ benefit. I wish I were just riding with my old Red Guards again, at times. Yes, I was in the Red Queen’s array and war livery, but duty for a soldier is easy and cares can be thrown off at night as you put off your day clothes. Duty as a king—finding it is like reading stars in a fog.”

  “Can’t you leave or stop?” AuRon knew what word he was seeking, he’d read it in some dwarfish text or other, but fumbled for the Pari equivalent.

  “Abdicate,” Naf said. “It crossed my mind. Hieba and I have discussed it, we considered renouncing the throne to search for Nissa—Lady Desthenae, to use her Ghioz court name. But even if I named my successor, there’s no telling who might be on the throne in a year’s time. We’ve just gained our independence. Dairuss has no traditions to speak of. Whatever I do will become tradition. It’ll be a poor start for my people if their king renounces his throne to go seek a married-off daughter.”

  “They must think well of you,” AuRon said. “It’s not
everyone who can work up the nerve to face down a dragon.”

  “SoRolatan didn’t put up much of a fight. He was raiding a marketplace and some old women started pelting him with garbage. When he flew back to the Golden Dome, sputtering outrage, I met him there with some spearmen. He roared a warning but fled as fast as his wings could travel.”

  “Your people chose well, picking you as king.”

  “They had few enough choices. All I had going for me was the knowledge that I fought the Ghioz when no one north of Bant dared defy them, and retrieved our old throne from the heart of the Red Queen’s Empire.”

  AuRon remembered him sitting in it, bloody and battered.

  Naf looked at the sky, chuckled. “You should hear the tales that pass for the official history of my battles. Back in Dairuss, they whispered that I was striking left and right, winning smashing victories and leaving a series of Ghioz generals embarrassed. Culminating, of course, with our great raid on the throne-city you helped us win. Oh, AuRon, I have been closeted with two very disappointed historians, correcting their texts so they know my gallant band spent most of their time in desperate flight from superior numbers.”

  “Most of my victories are little but escapes as well,” AuRon said, thinking of his encounters with the Dragonblade. Strange to think his brother, of all dragonkind, had been the one to kill that remarkable human.

  “So, what will it be, Naf? Another gallant fight, defeat, and you’ll end your days in these swamps or some valley in the Red Mountains? I promise you, if you accept me as Protector, you’ll hardly know we’re here. My mate and I will find a comfortable cave, and bide our time there until you need us.”

  “I suppose mock-independence is preferable to no independence. I just don’t want a court full of Hypatians running my country for me.”

  “We’ll keep them away.”

  “Then let’s call it a bargain,” Naf said, grinning. “That Imfamnia, I thought she said something about dragon blood?”

  “You speak Drakine?”

  “I picked up a little from SoRolatan,” Naf said.

  “It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but if you want to taste my blood, you’re more than welcome. Try some out of my tail, there are fewer nerve endings there.”

  Naf carefully cleaned his knife and gave AuRon a small nick, then drank from his waterskin cup.

  “Most invigorating,” Naf said.

  “Try not to get used to it,” AuRon said. “I don’t care what my brother does, but I don’t want to bleed every time you hold a feast.”

  * * *

  He returned to his family with the small nick already healed. They awaited him at the king’s stables. Istach was sleeping atop a barn, watching the stars. She was an odd one.

  “You look tired, my love,” Natasatch said, comfortably curled up in an old cow basement.

  “I flew a great deal with Naf in the last few days. We covered his whole kingdom.”

  “How goes the diplomacy?”

  “I have to tell you something, highlight of my song. My brother—well, Wistala, mostly, has put me forward as dragon lord—Protector, or whatever they call it—of Naf’s Kingdom. Naf has agreed that we might serve.”

  Natasatch’s eyes brightened as though filled with dragon-flame. “A Protector!”

  “You would like me to take the role?”

  She let out a loud prrum. “They’re all respected. Most are considered powerful. I’ve heard some become very rich.”

  “My brother was one before he became Tyr, I understand. We won’t grow rich here, though. Dairuss is a poor land, it just happens to be situated at a crossroads between south, east, and west.”

  “But you don’t like the idea, it seems.”

  “Getting mixed up in this way with hominids. It’s dangerous,” AuRon said.

  “But Naf wouldn’t hurt us. Did you not tell me he is your oldest hominid friend?”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t desire this position.”

  Natasatch asked, “To be of use to a friend?”

  “This ‘Grand Alliance’ my brother imagines, and Wistala is refining, could be the death of that friendship. I’d help Naf if it meant tearing my wings to pieces flying for him and losing teeth in his enemies’ necks. But he’ll only live so long. Who knows what manner of king might replace him, or what the Grand Alliance will one day demand of Dairuss. I fear that dragons who set themselves up to rule an empire on the backs of the hominids will only find they’ve left their undersides vulnerable.”

  Chapter 5

  The throne room atop the Imperial Rock in the Lavadome was buzzing. Oftentimes, it seemed that the Tyr was the last person to know what was going on. NoSohoth had gathered a crowd of important dragons—well, with so many living on the surface as Protectors these days, what passed for important dragons in the attenuated Lavadome—so he assumed it would be good news. Bad news always ended up being whispered in his ear.

  “He’s done it,” Wistala said, marching up toward the throne room with a smaller striped dragonelle just behind. “There, my Tyr, no threats or battles required. Instead of a defeated enemy, he brings an ally.”

  The Copper was still getting used to Wistala as his Queen-Consort. When Nilrasha had first brought up the idea of someone to stand in for her at the ceremonies and so on, that the Queen was expected to attend, he simply said that she should pick her replacement. He assumed it would be Ayafeeia—she was of very noble birth, being the granddaughter of Tyr Fe-Hazathant, and though she had no interest in politics could be counted on to show her face at a feast or a hatchling review.

  Instead he ended up with his sister, Wistala.

  She was a capable enough dragon and happy to forget the wrongs they’d done each other as hatchlings. Wistala had some obtuse ideas about how hominids should be treated. The Copper wanted the Hypatians as a privileged elite, who would keep the other hominids in line. Wistala seemed to think that the Hypatians should be dealt with as equals.

  “The easier an ally comes, the easier he goes,” the Copper said, quoting the Tyr—or rather FeHazathant. FeHazathant would always be “the Tyr” in his mind. The great old dragon who had adopted him when he’d virtually drifted into the Lavadome could only be emulated, never replaced. On the rare occasions when NoSohoth could be diverted from his blather about trade routes and thrall markets, the Copper liked to have him quote FeHazathant’s sayings.

  “How many dragons will he need?” the Copper asked.

  “Just himself and his mate, and their daughter while she remains with them. Istach is her name. She flew here with the news that AuRon the Gray is the new Protector of Dairuss.”

  “The other went into the Firemaidens, did she not?”

  “Varatheela. Yes, she’s taken her second oath,” Wistala said.

  The Copper wasn’t sure he liked Dairuss watched over only by dragons of his brother’s family. It was an important province. It guarded the Iwensi Gap in the Red Mountains, the route by which Hypatia had been invaded any number of times, most recently by the Ironriders under the Red Queen. There was a dwarf trading settlement at the falls, hanging there in the river’s neck like a stuck bone.

  He’ll have to see about getting a wall built. The Hypatians had started such a project several times in the past, with little to show for it but some scarring in the mountainsides where quarries were dug and a road running the purported path of the fortifications selected by Hypatian engineers. The gap was cold and windy, even in summer, and if there wasn’t dust blowing off the plains there was cold rain or sleet piling up off the Inland Ocean. Anything but dwarfs and sheep quickly sickened and died in the cold and wet.

  Well, there were dwarfs in the pass already. They might be persuaded to build the wall. Dwarfs couldn’t be threatened or bullied into doing something, but they might be bought. He suspected the dwarfs of the Diadem, who never put on their boots without calculating profit and loss, would command a hefty price to see it through.

  Why this sudden interest in the
wall? He’d known about it for years. Did he seek to put a barrier between himself and his brother? If he hadn’t once fought over an egg shelf with the fellow, he’d think him another inoffensive, unsealed gray. But grays could be tricky, with their ability to blend in and creep up on you without a sound.

  Back to business. The young dragonelle behind Wistala stepped forward.

  “Just as I told you,” Wistala said in her ear.

  “Tyr, I ask leave to make a report,” the newcomer said, a little wide-eyed at being atop Imperial Rock, the heart of the Lavadome.

  By Susiron, fixed forever in the sky! Jizara, how can this be? Winged and beautiful as I knew you always would be.

  The Copper couldn’t find words.

  “Tyr?” almost-Jizara repeated.

  “My Tyr, you mean,” NoSohoth prompted.

  “I don’t know that he’s my Tyr,” almost-Jizara said.

  “Why—” HeBellerath started. “You young—”

  “Oh, bother the court protocol,” the Copper said. “She’s not a dragon of the Lavadome, and Tyr is ample honor for me.”

  No, it wasn’t Jizara. She has stripes; Jizara’s scale was as uniform in color, save for a slight lightening along the belly, as any dragonelle. The young dragonelle just looked like her. Jizara as she might have been.

  But still.

  “What is your name again?”

  “Istach, daughter of Natasatch.”

  “I don’t suppose you can sing, Istach?”

  The assembly murmured at that. Wasn’t there a report to be heard? Had the Tyr taken leave of his senses?

  Bother all that, the Copper thought. I want to hear her sing.

  “Sing?” Istach said. “Just to pass the time when I’m preening scale.”

  “Let’s hear you.”

  Her eyes widened, and the Copper wondered if she thought him a bit mad.

  “Go on, you can never go far wrong doing as the Tyr requests,” NoSohoth said.

  “On our island we have some blighters. They sing a song when they’re digging—I’m not even sure what the words mean, they speak to us in a bad mix of Drakine and Pari. But it’s good for breaking open marrow bones, or piling cod for a roast.”