Dragon Outcast

by E. E. Knight

  “It would take a tall tablet to mark all your words, Angalia,” her companion observed.

  He had no difficulty learning about the death of SiDrakkon on the way to Black Rock. It was all anyone talked of, from the youngest drake to the oldest dragon-dame playing with some widower’s hatchlings. He’d been found alone in his garden bath, dead of some sort of seizure.

  “Alone?” the Copper asked.

  He’d named SiMevolant as his heir some time ago, it seemed, though the news had escaped the Copper in his far-off Uphold. Everyone took it to be a kind of joke.

  It was NoSohoth who explained it to him, as he ran himself ragged arranging for an audience SiMevolant had commanded for his line and the principal dragons of the six hills.

  “I believe he thought of it as a sort of safeguard against assassination,” NoSohoth said. “With the Lavadome the way it is, a fo—a personality like SiMevolant atop Black Rock would guarantee chaos and destruction. He figured we’d all be invoking the spirits every dawn and dusk, praying for his health.”

  “I’m told he was found in his bath, alone.”

  “Yes, by his mate and SiMevolant.”

  “Alone. In the garden bath. How likely is that?”

  “If SiMevolant said it happened, that’s how it happened.”

  “I’ll challenge him on that.”

  NoSohoth placed a sii on his. “Don’t. He’s been unusually wise about things since he rose to the rank of Tyr. Let’s wait and see. Things may work out. I expect he’s going to announce a mating to Imfamnia at this audience.”

  “So soon?”

  “These last years have been rather a whirlwind, haven’t they? No one’s had a chance to right their wings and glide for a bit.”

  “I’m worried about those hag-ridden dragons returning.”

  “They’ll be handled. With diplomacy.”

  “I had a mouthful of their diplomacy over Anaea. It tastes like death and ash.”

  “I’ve no more time. There’re details for a grand banquet to be arranged; the gardens are to be opened up again to the dragons of the Imperial Resort….”

  He hurried off down the tunnel, rounding up thralls to do his bidding.

  The commanded audience was held just before a scheduled banquet of rumored magnificence, which showed some craftiness on SiMevolant’s part. He’d speak to them in brief, and then dismiss them to go gorge themselves at length. No one could accuse the golden dragon of not knowing the most pleasant way to go about business.

  Imfamnia, painted all in black—except for the sparkling jewels embedded into her griff—watched the dragons assemble from her bare widow’s perch.

  The Copper noticed that there were no griffaran above, and wondered. Either SiMevolant was extraordinarily brave or exceedingly foolish; both Tyrs he had known had found the implicit threat of a griffaran bodyguard useful.

  The wooden arches above seemed cold and empty without their colorful feathers.

  The audience chamber didn’t look particularily full; perhaps some in the higher-ranking families feared reprisals. To fill the room NoSohoth began to shove in dragons of lesser lines. When a solid mass of dragonflesh stood before the Tyr’s shelf, Tighlia foremost and eyes locked hatefully on her mate-sister, Imfamnia nodded.

  “They’re all assembled now, Tyr SiMevolant,” Imfamnia called toward the curtains.

  The curtains parted, drawn by thralls as though through sorcery, and SiMevolant emerged, moving forward on a sort of traveling perch that rolled both smoothly and almost silently, its wheels obscured by heavy fabrics, draped and corded. He had polished his scale to a bright sheen and purpled his eyelids and whited his claws, but other than that he looked like a fine, healthy, gold dragon. The Copper couldn’t say what he was expecting—peacock feathers and snakeskins perhaps—but if anything, this mate-brother looked…kingly.

  SiMevolant bowed, let his head rove across the audience, and let out with the loudest prrum the Copper had ever heard.

  “I want to begin anew,” SiMevolant said. “I’ve been distressed beyond words these last few years. Skotl set against Wyrr set against Anklene. Everyone may keep their current positions, but in the future I’m going to do my best to fill ranks based on merit, with the assistance of wise counsel.

  “And I hate all this dueling. Is that really a way for dragons to settle differences? Can’t we learn a new way that doesn’t involve shedding blood? I don’t have a solution, but I welcome ideas. I beg the assistance of wise counsel.”

  “Furthermore, I hate all this skulking around undergound. Dragons are the most glorious of all the Spirits’ creations. It’s time we started acting it instead of taking such pains to hide our existence.”

  “Bloody fool!” Ibidio hissed. The Copper hardly noticed that she’d slipped up next to him, shoving her way through a deputy of Firemaids.

  “Also, I’ve thought it best to dismiss the griffaran guard, as you can see.”

  “Dismissed the griffaran?” NeStirrath asked, his tangled horns rising from the crowd. “Our stoutest allies?”

  “And biggest appetites,” SiMevolant said. “I’ve spoken to wise counsel, and, measure for measure, they consume twice what a dragon does. It’s never been the greatest of friendships; there’s almost no social interaction. We guard their nests and they guard our skies. The whole thing’s based on some mossy old hatchling story of a griffaran egg and a dragon egg washed away in a storm, saved and hatched together by a wise old eagle. We’re paying for it all these years later, in less for all of us to eat.”

  A few dragons raised their heads as though to object, but SiMevolant stared them down, his eyes full of power and certitude. The last time the Copper had seen eyes like that, they were attached to King Gan. It was as though SiMevolant could slay a dragon by thought alone.

  “Let’s hear how SiDrakkon died,” the Copper said, not sure where the voice was coming from.

  “Be silent,” Ibidio whispered. “This isn’t the time.”

  The surrounding dragons shrank away from the Copper as though he carried a new kind of parasite.

  “I don’t mind the question,” SiMevolant said. “Not one little bit. He had some sort of seizure in his bath. His mate found him first; I arrived soon after. No one could say what caused it, or how long it took, but he did have a ghastly expression on his face. Accidents do happen, RuGaard. By the way, how is my dear sister? But back to our late, beloved Tyr. Perhaps it was an assassination; he had enemies enough, and there were no witnesses. Which reminds me—you’ll enjoy the plumpest, most succulent, tastiest manflesh you’ve had in years at tonight’s banquet.”

  “Look at you all! Lions led by a frothing hyena!” Tighlia said, stepping forward and rounding on the audience.

  “Now, Granddam,” SiMevolant said. “I thought I sent you some wine to keep you quiet. Why don’t you go home and drink it?”

  She ignored him, spitting a gob of flame at the audience. “The civil war killed off the good dragons. What’s left? Brazen cowards, vain philosophers, mating deviants, and back-scratching scalemates adding to one another’s hoards. It’s the litter and detritus collecting in the shadows and corners that bred this, this…farce. This fool will get you all killed. Maybe it’s for the best. We’ve earned our extinction.”

  “She’s like one of those windup things the dwarves make. Same speech every time her tail is twisted,” SiMevolant said quietly to Imfamnia, who giggled.

  “Are you done, Tighlia?” Imfamnia asked.

  “Yes. We all are,” she said. She began to stalk out of the room, stumping out her own fire. She stopped and sent a sharp glance at Ibidio, who let out a startled gasp; then she moved on. The crowd parted for her, bending back like tall grass before a strong breeze.

  “Good,” SiMevolant said. “I want to introduce some wise counsel who will guarantee our dignity and security for generations to come. Mmmmmm? I present our new ally, recently sent here from the Alliance of the Golden Circle.”

  A tall hominid in bla
ck scale armor stepped from behind the curtains and strode forward so he stood next to SiMevolant. He had gray hair flecked here and there with black, and a slightly darker beard hanging from a scarred face.

  The Copper recognized the armor, the weapons, the face.

  The Dragonblade stood before the audience.

  Chapter 27

  Tighlia turned again, knocking over two members of the Drakwatch.

  “How dare you! How dare you!” Every scale stood straight up on her skin, her wings half-opened as they shook with fury; her griff rattled, and slime poured out each side of her mouth.

  “On the shelf where my mate stood,” she continued, hardly able to get the words out. “You bring a human arrayed for war? A spear and a drawn sword, atop the Black Rock? No man may dare stand on such hallowed stone!” “Not any human, Tighlia,” the Copper said. “He kills dragons for a living.”

  The Dragonblade tipped his spear forward just a little. Some of the audience squeezed out of the audience room; others shoved their way forward.

  “I expected to be challenged,” the Dragonblade said. “That it comes from an aged female surprises me.”

  “She’s under the impression she’s still a personage of consequence,” SiMevolant said.

  “Are you going to come down, man, or will I have to soil my mate’s memory by spilling your blood where he used to stand?”

  “I’ve no wish to kill. I made my peace with dragons years ago. But a wise man convinced me your kind can be saved, if properly led and channeled. I don’t want to begin my governorship here with blood.”

  “Governorship!” Tighlia roared, shaking the timbers all the way to the roof, and jumped.

  She jumped well for a dragon her size, and against an ordinary man, even a warrior, she would have turned him into pulp and black blood against the obsidian stone of the Rock.

  The Dragonblade set his spear and she impaled herself upon it. He rolled out from under her, on his feet with sword out as easily as a falling cat righted itself. The sword flashed up once, and liquid fire spilled across the Tyr’s shelf, a second time down and the Copper saw the gruesome white of the bones of her spine.

  Tighlia collapsed, all of her going limp at once—save for her tail and twitching saa, which jerked and shuddered as though trying to fight on.

  SiMevolant looked down at her. “What’s that, Granddam?…Well, first, I don’t believe in curses; second…Oh, dear, you’re gone. I must learn to make my points more quickly.”

  “I wish she had stayed at home and enjoyed her wine,” Imfamnia said.

  Liquid fire ran off the Tyr’s shelf. To the Copper, the events on the Tyr’s shelf seemed a horizon distant, yet etched in vivid detail. His head whirled.

  “Sand. At once—now,” Imfamnia called, lifting a curtain out of the way with her tail to keep it from catching fire.

  “Are there any more challenges?” the Dragonblade asked. A drake tried to step forward, but NeStirrath pressed his heavy sii on the youth’s tail.

  The Dragonblade retrieved a decorative, jewel-encrusted goblet from the Tyr’s display of trophies and knelt beside Tighlia. He filled his cup with the blood leaking out of her neck and drank, smacking his lips afterward.

  “Our future is in alliances, not war,” SiMevolant said to the shocked assembly. “United with these men, no power in the two worlds may threaten us. Let all who doubt this truth remember the fate of Tighlia. Now begins a golden era, begun by a golden dragon. Light the beacons, NoSohoth.”

  “Hurrah!” shouted the Dragonblade. “The union forever!”

  Ibidio slipped up next to the Copper. “I must speak to you,” she whispered, then switched to mind-speech. If you still live tomorrow, go to the hill of the Anklenes. Once inside, ask for the senior doorwarden. Tell him this: “Immortal Memory.”

  The Copper was still too shocked to do anything but nod. The swirl of memories, of fears, of regrets, of pain brought by the Dragonblade’s slaying of Tighlia, had left him clouded.

  “Immortal Memory,” he thought back to her. If I still live?

  In the lore of the Lavadome, the hours were afterward known as the Night of the Desperate Deaths.

  To those who knew only vaguely of events within the Imperial Resort, the first sign of them was when two beacons were lit atop the Rock, burning a bright blue as though by magic—the Copper knew very well it was dwarvish chemicals, but what sort of mix the humans who lit the beacons used, he never could remember, despite all the pleadings and urgings of the Anklenes.

  And with that, hag-ridden dragons flew into the Lavadome in two long lines.

  Perhaps a score of dragons, knowing the war gossip that had been spreading ever since the Copper’s arrival with the news of Anaea, realized what the invasion portended and took to the air to meet it.

  No dragon who fought that night lived.

  Black Rock was emptied of all dragons save for the Imperial line, who remained in the Imperial Resort in a nebulous role between leaders and hostages. The allies occupied the best caves and the best galleries, save for the top level and the Gardens, where SiMevolant, his widowed-and-mated Imfamnia, and the governor-general remained.

  And the ubiquitous NoSohoth.

  Atop the rock, as the hag-ridden dragons performed military evolutions, showing their skill, the most dispirited banquet in Lavadome history was held. The food—exquisite and tender. The wine—unparalleled by anything that had come before, thanks to exotic captured vintages brought in by the Andam, the Men of the Golden Circle.

  It was a brave young drake who took the first bite. The rest of the company watched anxiously for signs of poisoning as they nibbled on bits of greenstuff, onions, and ores.

  The Copper, never a fan of banquets and unable to enjoy the flesh of so many limbs and sides that looked like Rhea, sat in the garden and tried to think.

  One thing the display of force and flying skill did offer him: a chance to count their numbers. Three-score dragons and riders, and another half-score of dragons on lines attached to the others, bearing baggage or supplies.

  A few wings over forty, using the ten-count numbering system of the dwarves Rayg had been teaching him.

  He did his best to overhear some of the conversation between SiMevolant and the Dragonblade. Evidently some kind of long-planned war had begun. They flew from a fastness in the north, and had just seized a sort of floating city on the Inland Ocean. Holding the Lavadome would give them a third hold for rest and organization in the south.

  The Dragonblade filled SiMevolant’s ears with praise about his foresight as a dragon and the heights his leadership would allow the Drakines to reach.

  The Copper almost wanted to warn SiMevolant of the fine words that marched in front of betrayals, but when one gathered such snakes to one’s bosom, one had to learn about being bitten.

  He slunk off into the greenery and became violently sick.

  The next day he did as Ibidio requested and went to the Anklene hill. He asked for the head doorwarden and gave him the signal phrase. The warden took him down a short ramp and stuck an odd metal spike into a crevice under a cast of a blighter’s face, and the wall clicked.

  He showed the Copper where to push, and soon he found himself in an underground chamber designed for dragon-sized creatures, with low ledges around the walls, fine sand on the floors, and a water cistern fed by a drip in the roof. There was also a tiled sanitary room with a gutter.

  Rethothanna was already there, waiting with Ibidio.

  “I don’t understand,” the Copper said. “Is this a conspiracy? If we packed this room with dragons atop one another, there wouldn’t be enough to fight the hag-riddens.”

  “Well said, RuGaard,” Ibidio said. “That’s just what they are.”

  Rethothanna drew a claw across the sand, making a furrow. “This group was started…Perhaps you should tell him, Ibidio.”

  “After the death of my mate,” Ibidio said sternly, “I suspected an assassination. He came back from the wars injured, ye
s, but he was a strong dragon who always recovered quickly, from even greater injuries than those I saw that last time. Then his wounds suddenly quit healing, became infected, and he died. Even the Anklenes said they’d seen nothing like it.”

  “No more than seven dragons ever belonged to this group,” Rethothanna said. “One from each hill, and Ibidio from the Imperial Resort. We had Skotl, Wyrr, and Anklene members. All with one thing in common: love of my mate.”

  “And now you have an outcast of no particular line,” the Copper said. “Even my name was once another’s.”

  Others trickled in, at what seemed like long intervals. Finally NeStirrath arrived.

  “Why, RuGaard too! You never seemed the conspirator type,” NeStirrath said.

  “We have two new members tonight,” Ibidio said, with seven other dragons sitting around the edges of the room. “And we mourn the loss of UlBannesh in the fighting yesterday. A brave dragon. He will be missed.”

  “It’s dangerous meeting so soon after yesterday,” a Skotl dame said. “I’m sure I’m being watched.”

  “I will be quick. I have important news. Before she died yesterday, Tighlia and I exchanged our first mind-speech in…well, since my mate died. Yes, we used to argue or joke with our minds frequently, for our mates were kin and closer than usual for a dragon and his clutchwinner grown, but after AgGriffopse died—”

  “Immortal be his memory,” the others said in unison, save for the Copper, who just mumbled to join in, not knowing the group’s habits.

  Now I’m in league with the memory of a dragon I’ve never even met.

  “But to go on,” Ibidio continued. “RuGaard, this will be a shock to you. Tighlia mind-spoke and told me that just before he died, the Tyr—Tyr FeHazathant, my mate’s father—said that he was appointing you heir and future Tyr. If you wanted the rank. That’s what his words meant, the day he died. ‘Ask RuGaard to be Tyr.’ I’m so used to looking for plots and hidden signs in everyday talk I couldn’t puzzle out its simple meaning. What do you say to that?”