Dragon Outcast

by E. E. Knight

  The Copper looked over his many scabs and felt a little ashamed. He should have brought Thernadad and his wife back a whole snake, at that.

  “Hope y’didn’t chomp one of King Gan’s favorites. E’be a mean one. E’doesn’t like anyone a’meddlin’ w’his snakes. Except hisself, of course. E’eats his own kind.”

  “King Gan eats his own snakes? Why would they keep such a king?”

  “The others not be having much choice in the matter. E’says: ‘They can hate as hard as they like, as long as they fear.’ It’s a necessity, like. There’s precious little to fill an appetite such as his.

  “A cave snake, sir, twice your length and more besides. The White Lightning. By the time y’knows he struck y’be dead. He’s strong enough to swim upstream in the river if he likes. Lost my own poor father to him, and an uncle besides.”

  “Any area I should stay away from?”

  “There’s a swampy bit over there.” Thernadad pointed with a vein-stitched wing. “Beyond that, a real honeycomb it is, where the dwarves struck gold. There’s an air shaft to the surface e’using in summer. Y’be keeping away and not getting ideas, m’hoping.”

  “Of course,” the Copper said. He squeezed into a crevice welled in shadow. “I’m for a nap. Wake me if King Gan goes for a swim.”

  Thernadad licked his grasping digits and cleaned all around his eyes. “Nowt a’gets past me, sir. Why, m’be having eyes that can spot a rat-tail twitch on the far side of the cavern, and ears that echo off a pinched mouse turd before it hits. M’begging the sir’s pardon for the coarse language; m’be forgetting myself. Right! Ears down and all, on duty, quick’s the wing and sharp’s the tooth…”

  Thernadad’s chatter went on, but the Copper slept through the rest.

  The Copper woke briefly at a slight smelly sploit of bat guano dropping. He rolled an eye upward and saw Thernadad hanging there, wings well over his face, making rasping noises in his sleep.

  “There, e’be waking,” Mamedi said.

  Another, even wider than her and with two little bats clinging trembling to its back, also looked down at him.

  Mamedi rubbed her grasping digits together. “Sir, not to be bothering sir, but it’s been a long trip and me sister, e’be perishing hungry, and her brood a’be so hungry they barely a’clinging to her back. Just the tiniest of nips out of your tail; won’t feel but a pinch, an’ a little blood loss heals a big wound, good for the circulation an’ all….”

  “Just this once,” he said, shifting so he could extend his tail.

  Mamedi crept down first, found a scale nit, and crunched it down. “Oh, they a’be the very buggers. There’s another. Sir, what y’been doing that y’picked up so many so quick?”

  He craned his neck a little so he could look behind and saw Mamedi’s sister and her children lapping at a slight, pleasantly tingling wound. Another bat crept out of the shadows and joined in the flowing feast.

  “Wait, who’s that?”

  Mamedi lifted her snout from his scale-roots. “Her mate, of course. E’s supposed to leave the father of her children behind when she moves into a new cave?”

  “I imagine not.”

  “There’s a lesson in generosity for you, nephews!” Mamedi said. “Remember it. Y’don’t often see the like these days. E’be a very special gentle sort. It’s a rare one that doesn’t forge a favor and returns kindness with kindness, Thernie and me saving his life and all.”

  Her sister and family cooed and yeeked agreeable noises as they lapped.

  The Copper dozed. He’d hunted again, keeping well away from the set of pools Therenadad had called “the swampy bit.”

  He wondered if the events in the home cave had been some terrible dream, brought on by exploring the pool, diving, and being injured when he fell into the river. He’d fallen in and out of consciousness often enough, or been half drowned when pulled by undertow. Could all the detail—the dwarves with their faint-glowing beards and the big man with the glowing spear—be the product of frightful, dying-hatchling dreams?

  He told himself his family was alive and well. Not missing him a bit, of course, but such was his lot as an odd male—what had Father called him? Outcast. They were probably gathered around Mother on the egg shelf now, feasting on some thick-muscled oxen brought back by Father, and Jizara was singing after the feast.

  “M’excuse, sir. Sir?” Thernadad said, climbing down the cave wall next to him.

  “Yes?”

  “The mate an m’talked, and since her sister’s come to stay, we thought one more or less wouldn’t make a difference.” He went into a paroxysm of fur smoothing.

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “It’s me old mum, sir. E’can’t make it to the surface anymore, or survive the dangers out there besides. Pitiful shape she’s in. If e’could just have a lick or two, e’doesn’t have any appetite at all no more, hardly.”

  The Copper saw a half-white bat, small and frail, above.

  “Oh, very well. I suppose her sister’s somewhere behind, also starving.”

  “Oh, no, no. My brother. A great, well-traveled bat e’is; been down every hole in these mountains. Thousand and one stories. Now e’takes care of old Mum. E’pulled her up, again and again, to the cave roof on the trip so she could drop for another glide. E’perishing with exhaustion, e’is.”

  “So he needs some blood down his throat, too.” The Copper felt his griff flutter.

  “Sir, don’t be a’taking me wrong,” he said as the tiny old bat crawled down his back. “What you’ve done for us poor hangers more than makes up for your life being saved by quick thinking an’ skill and charity. Wonderful thing, charity. Never know how it a’gets paid back in this life or the next. Here, y’be excusing me, her old teeth, you know.”

  Thernadad licked him a couple times, and the Copper felt the nook in his saa go numb. With a quick bite Thernadad opened a cut and the old bat began to lap.

  Thernadad wiped the corner of his eyes again and again as he licked a smear of blood from his limbs. “Oh, sir. Me poor old mum. You’ve made me so happy. M’won’t forget this kindness till the day I drop. No, sir.”

  “Rich good blood, this dragon,” Thernadad’s mother said.

  “Oh, dragon,” a great heavy bat said. He’d shifted to directly above the Copper with surprising stealth. “Haven’t tasted that since I flew the whole way ’round the Lavadome. What a place. Thick with dragons. Not as kind as this one, no, nearly got my wings bit off. Y’be falling into the Nor’flow by accident and get carried all this way, m’lord?”

  Thick with dragons? “Tell me more,” the Copper said.

  “Glad to, m’lord. It’s only my throat, a’be drying up from the exertions.”

  “I suppose I can spare a little more.”

  The big bat dropped down to his flank.

  “Ooooo, is there a party?” Mamedi said, crawling across the cave roof with her sister and brood behind. A couple more bats seemed to have joined the family.

  “E’s flowing nicely,” Thernadad’s mother said. “Great strong young dragon.”

  Thernadad’s wide-bodied brother shoved his mother out of the way and pushed his nose in and drank. When he came up for air, he wiped his snout with his wing and dragged himself up the Copper’s neck, where he threw a companionable wing around and gave him a bloody leer. “Dragons a’loving treasure stories. Ever heard of CuTar? How about the great glowing stone of NooMoahk? In old Uldam, it is, like a bit of the sun itself dropped into the earth—”

  “I’d rather hear about this Lavadome. Where is it, exactly?”

  “Oh, an awful journey y’had, to get so lost and confused. To get back y’be having to make it to the Antiope for the southward flow, and there’s no good road, in the sun or in the dark, not hereabouts. M’taking another pull and think on it. Hey! Y’be getting out of it, you greedy beggars!”

  Mamedi and her relations fought for a place in a wing-jostling heap at the cut in his tail. One of the bigger one
s, more enterprising than the rest, had opened another wound in his tail.

  “This is a bit much,” the Copper said. He dragged his tail away from the greedy mouths.

  “Y’be molesting our good host,” Thernadad yelled from above.

  “Faaaa!” Mamedi answered back.

  “Off me mum, you!” Thernadad dropped down on one of his mate’s relations who’d shoved his frail mother aside—less vigorously than her own son, it seemed to the Copper, but he was learning that the insult wasn’t as important as who offered it. A full-out bat brawl started.

  He curled his slit tail around himself—it bent in a funny and uneven manner, with bends more like a dwarf tunnel, thanks to the rod injuries to it, and alternately licked and blew on the cuts until the bleeding stopped, as the bats lashed one another with leather wings and tried to bite off oversize hairy ears.

  He woke feeling tired and hungry. He checked his cuts and discovered a new wound in the soft spot just behind his shoulder. Though bat bites did heal clean and fast, and he could hardly feel the injuries. His head hurt, and he walked down to the river for a drink.

  He sucked cold water, and his head began to feel better almost immediately.

  Thernadad swooped by. “Sir, y’be wanting to get away from the river!”

  Bing-bing. Bing-bing…Bing-bing! The metallic clatter was regular, and therefore alarming. He saw a light up the tunnel from upstream, reflected on the flowing water.

  “Hurry!” Thernadad urged.

  BING-BING!

  He scrambled backward and set himself against the cave wall.

  A long wooden trunk, a clattering bell anchored at the front and swaying lanterns hung in reflective hollows in its sides, rushed down the river, pushed along by the fast-flowing water. Through long, narrow slits he saw dwarves within, sweating backs rising and falling as they worked at some mystery on their craft. He caught one glimpse of a dwarf at the tail, hanging off a flange and working some kind of apparatus that descended into the water from the safety of a metal cage, and it was gone, moving as fast as a quick-walking dragon.

  BING-bing…Bing-bing…Bing…Bing.

  Thernadad alighted and smoothed his face fur. “Careful at the river now, sir.”

  “What was that?”

  “The dwarves. They get about on those things here in the Lower World.”

  “It came from the same direction I did, with the current.”

  “Of course e’did, sir. Always a’coming from that direction.”

  “Then how do they get back?”

  “Mother! Mother!” Thernadad called back, but not in answer to his question. The Copper heard air move above, and saw the old white-flecked bat turning tight circles low over the underground river.

  “M’knew it,” she screeched as she flapped back into the cave and rested. “Flies be riding with the dwarves. Snapped up two while y’be working your jaw.”

  The Copper’s appetite had woken with a vengeance, and he began to sniff around the bank of the river. Perhaps fish lived within the fast-flowing current.

  “Y’flying days be over, m’thinking!” Thernadad said. “Enjor, e’be saying you could hardly glide nomores.”

  She alighted next to the channel bearing a trickle into the cave interior and took in water with her quick, darting tongue.

  She smacked her thin lips. “Oh, Thernie, just woke up hale this morning, m’did. Full of guano and ginger. M’wanting a bit of air under me wing.” She brushed the fur forward on her face and dug in an ear and gobbled down whatever she found within. “This young dragon—yeeek!”

  A translucent tongue shot up from where it rested next to the channel. It was segmented, with countless legs a blur, its body like living, mottled eyejelly. To the bat, thicker around than she and many times her length, it was a mortal danger, pincers at the front opening for her….

  To the Copper it was breakfast.

  He scrambled after it and extended his neck, bit down on the back half, and yanked it skyward. Legs tickling at his throat, he gulped it down.

  He looked down to see Thernadad flapping his wings in the face of his mother, who blinked awake. She climbed onto his back and he scuttled back up, in that elbows-out fashion of bats, to the cavern roof.

  “Twice grateful, sir,” Thernadad said, panting a little.

  “Any blood flowing this fine night?” Mamedi said, creeping forward.

  “Out of it!” Thernadad bawled. She was out of reach, so he battled the air in her direction with his wings.

  “Just thinking of refreshing meself. Like a new-mated bat you were last sunrise. M’be hardly able to keep a grip.”

  “Oh, son, m’be pershishing of that scare,” Thernadad’s mother croaked. “Just a wee drop; perhaps y’be persuading our kindly young prince now?”

  The Copper saw other eyes shining in the darkness. How many bats had gathered in this cave?

  “Sir—” Thernadad said.

  “Leave me alone, would you?” the Copper said. He stalked into the cave, leaving the cluster of bats.

  “Greedy sots!” Thernadad yelled, and soon the Copper heard the wing-flapping, tooth-snapping sound of a full-out bat brawl.

  The Copper found a dark corner and rested. The seemingly still-twitching centipede wasn’t agreeing with him.

  He wondered about this Lavadome and the dragons there. It must be a wonderful place, with plenty to eat, for dragons to be gathered there. He didn’t know much about dragon society, but he knew that Father had to fly far and wide so he wouldn’t over-hunt an area—or so that snatched livestock were only a nuisance, and not a regular threat. Would they look kindly on the arrival of a distant relative, hurt by weary dragonlengths of travel?

  And they wouldn’t know his secrets.

  He let off a burp, and the centipede finally ceased its attempts to escape his stomach.

  The Lavadome sounded a long way off, and he couldn’t fly like a bat.

  But he could follow one….

  The Copper lunged forward without really knowing why. A heavy force struck the ground behind and all he could think was, Curse that Gray Rat!—having instinctively avoided another of his brother’s pounces. But he felt the weight of the thing in the air behind, in the tremor that ran through the solid rock when it hit.

  He turned.

  A huge, pale gray mass writhed over and around itself behind. A head that could probably suck him down as easily as he’d swallowed the centipede lifted itself from the mass, pointing its nose this way and that until it fixed on him.

  “You picked the wrong cave, hatchling,” it whispered at him.

  The Copper didn’t know of the old rivalry between snakes and dragons, the contempt in which the serpents held the winged and legged. Young dragons hunted the same game the great snakes did, so perhaps the old enmity was akin to that of lions and cheetahs in other parts of the world, competitors who struck each other’s young. He certainly never heard the tale of the deaths of AuZath and Nubiel, dragons of Ydar. They were murdered by a serpent who injected his poison into apples, which were eaten by grazing horses, which died and were naturally devoured in turn by the dragons.

  The Copper just knew he was afraid.

  “You must be King Gan,” he managed to say, though the words sounded a little croaky. Some instinct flared within; he hated the legless, writhing form. But fear froze him. They can hate as hard as they like, as long as they fear….

  He’d never seen such black eyes. The way they fixed on him, so exactly aligned, it was as if the entire earth were a little off-kilter, as measured by the level of those eyes.

  “I am. And all within sight, sound, hearing, and heat is mine. You are mine.”

  The snake flowed toward him. The Copper couldn’t break off; all he could do was watch the eyes approach, twin balls rushing toward him, perfectly level….

  Something boxed him about the eyes and crest. “Don’t be looking him in the eyes!” Thernadad screeched, darting up and out of the way of the snake.

 
The snake lunged at him, suddenly transformed into pure energy. Its body seemed to vaporize into a white blur rushing toward him.

  He ducked, hugging his belly to safe rock.

  King Gan, forced by the bat’s intervention to strike a switchback before he was ready, struck the Copper at the head instead of the base of the neck. His fangs, out and forward, folded against the Copper’s young crest above his eyes.

  The Copper felt hot liquid run down either side of his head as the snake became a snake again, and coiled back.

  Fear flowed up from his belly, tightened against his breastbone. He seized up, stuck out his own neck, and vomited, fire bladder emptying toward the snake.

  A spray of yellowish liquid, vaguely sulfurous, struck King Gan across the nose.

  The great snake went mad. He whipped his head back and forth, writhed, coiled, uncoiled, knotted, until the Copper couldn’t tell head from tail but could only run lest he be crushed as the snake rolled and whipped.

  A dragonlength away he paused to glance over his shoulder. King Gan flowed toward his swamp as fast as coils would carry him, where he plunged headfirst into the shallow water of the moss-thick mire.

  “Right in the pits y’be hitting him. Never saw the like—a’taking the venom out of ol’ King Gan that way.”

  “The pits?”

  “Everything here in the dark has a way of a’hunting that don’t rely on light,” Thernadad said. “Bats be having our ears, that lousy legpincher feels vibrations, and the snakes feel the heat of us poor warm-blood rodents. M’hearing dragons sniff for that what doesn’t smell as bad as they do, but y’be free to correct me, cousin.”

  “Cousin?”

  “Your life. Saved three times now. That be making us family, the way bats see it. Speaking of which, m’be working up a powerful thirst saving your life. How about a nip out of the old tail, real quiet, before a whole skytrail of the hungry beggars show up?”

  Later, feeling a bit drained, and not just because of the blood Thernadad lapped out of his tail, the Copper rested. He perched high—hopefully out of King Gan’s reach—and watched the mire. He heard an occasional bubbling hiss and a splash, as King Gan soaked the heat pits on his nose.