Dragon Outcast

by E. E. Knight

  If you died fighting, were you still vanquished?

  A trickle of oily-smelling liquid dribbled out of the Dragonblade’s scale greaves, spotting the sand. The Copper traced its source with his eye. It came from beneath the armor.

  “Mercy,” the Copper whispered, as Jizara had. Perhaps the Dragonblade had changed. Perhaps this time he’d grant mercy to a vanquished foe.

  The man just snorted and adjusted the aim of his sword tip. “Not to such as you. Last words?”

  The Copper refused to waste his final breath in a curse. With what wind he had left he forced a gob out of his mouth.

  A flaming torf. Pitiful. Hardly bigger than a lump of coal.

  A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot.

  A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot and set his whole leg aflame.

  Which set his hips on fire.

  Which crawled up his torso and yes, even flickered out the slits in his face mask.

  He died rather more noisily than Mother.

  A blur of gold and SiMevolant landed heavily in the sand. He stormed toward the Copper, shining like the sun itself come to earth. “What have you done? Don’t you understand? Our age is over! We must ally with men, or our flame will be extinguished forever.”

  “Not yet,” the Copper gasped.

  SiMevolant raised his tail. Along with the strange black stripes, a silver barb had been added to the end.

  It dripped.

  Open jaws and claws bounded out of the darkness. Nilrasha seized SiMevolant’s tail in her jaws and yanked, tearing a third of it off. She threw the dismembered tail away, and it rolled and twitched in the sand.

  SiMevolant forgot about the injured Copper—someone had done that before, to his regret, the Copper vaguely remembered with a tickle of pride—and turned on Nilrasha, rising and spreading his wings a little, showing this backbiting female how big he truly was!

  The fool. He should have kept to his cowardly ways. Don’t fight if you know nothing about fighting. He didn’t even lower himself to protect his belly.

  The Copper lashed out with a saa and opened SiMevolant wide and deep.

  The would-be Tyr looked down at the coils spilling from his belly, writhing like a horde of unleashed snakes.

  And then Nilrasha fell on him, pushing his neck to the sand, opening windpipe and blood vessels, and SiMevolant let out a gurgling protest as he died.

  “Nilrasha, you’ve come again.”

  “I never thought I could fly so fast,” she said, dropping beside him. “You’re not badly hurt. Just cut up.”

  “You must go up. Help the others.”

  “I’ve no armor. Rayg had time and materials to make only three of the underside leathers. AuBalagrave and his dragons are wearing them.”

  “The plan could fail. We’re deep beneath the Rock. You should leave, so you have room to run.”

  “In victory or defeat, I’m determined to die at your side, my love.” She looked up. “Here! You! Bat. Get over here. I’ve work for you.”

  Uthaned himself, a gray mouse who could fit in the Copper’s nostril, fluttered above his ear.

  “The blood is in pools on the dragon-barrack floor, m’lord,” Uthaned said. “The dragons rise just high enough to kill their men in their fall.”

  The Copper always regretted not being able to see it.

  As Rethothanna related it to him later, like all well-fought battles, it was over before it was begun. The bats had opened veins on most of the dragon-rider mounts, numbing and cutting, numbing and cutting, and letting the blood run into the washing gutters.

  In another cave it might not have worked—some attendant might have noticed the blood pooling on the floor—but not in the shining confines of the Rock. The black surface concealed the damage done until it was too late.

  So when the alarm was sounded and the men ran to their mounts, the woozy beasts slipped and bumped. Those who even beat their wings hard enough to rise soon passed out, crumpled, and fell to earth. There was a terrible toll in broken necks and backs on the dragons, but the dragon-riders had it even worse.

  Of course, a healthy patrol was up over the Rock, as always, and it took many lives before the hag-riders were plucked out of their saddles and their maddened, confused mounts crippled. Even AuBalagrave, one of the few dragons with his belly armored against crossbow bolts, fell with a poisoned arrowhead in his jaw. But other dragons battered and swatted the flying hag-riddens, or plucked the men off while they were reloading their weapons.

  There was bitter tunnel fighting against the Andam, but the Drakwatch distinguished itself. Old NeStirrath fell at their head when a wounded human plunged a poisoned blade into him. Of all the names of the fallen from that day, his glory lasted the longest.

  The Imperial line had been reduced once again. Now only a handful remained.

  Imfamnia fled. Some said she had chains of gold clutched in each claw. Others said she was heavy with SiMevolant’s eggs. Or SiDrakkon’s. Or a dozen other rumored lovers, earning her the title “Jade Queen” in the Anklene Histories. None could say where she went.

  A small group of men and dragons barricaded themselves deep in the rock with a reserve of food and water. They refused all attempts at parley until the Copper tottered to their tunnel, supported by Nilrasha. He dragged with him a woman clutching a squalling babe.

  He showed the pair to the men at the other end of the tunnel and issued the only offer he could to give to the poison-men, for it was the only one their savage, half-formed brains could appreciate:

  He summoned his best voice. “Surrender and give your lives over to us, or we’ll kill each of you, your wives, and spit your babes for roasting. The choice is yours, men: fair treatment as thralls, or death.”

  Two committed suicide in despair. The rest sensibly chose thralldom.

  And it was only while limping out of the Imperial Resort, with dragons and thralls alike calling him “Tyr RuGaard” and Nilrasha “Queen Ora,” that he realized what he had become.

  Epilogue

  An Anklene, with the assistance of two elvish thralls, stitched him up. His good sii soon functioned again, though the scarred hide on his haunch never grew a proper set of scale again, just a sort of scabby covering like a turtle’s shell.

  He had to make a great many decisions from the Tyr’s shelf, but he grew used to much of the labor required of a Tyr, to the point where he looked forward to the challenges, such as rebuilding the alliance with the griffaran. He even made a sort of art of delegating authority. The real trick was matching the right sort of brains and brawn to each task.

  “Rayg is a clever man. In the world I intend to build, clever men will do very well. As long as they understand their place in the Spirits’ grand design,” he said to Rhea as she scrubbed him one morning. He had to confess that he liked the smell of bath-water with a slippery woman in it. But all things in moderation.

  “You might want to communicate that to him,” Nilrasha said as she performed her own ablutions.

  Rayg had been kept busy studying the dragon-riders’ weapons and equipment in the hope of making improvements. Now and then he complained that he should be freed by now, but the Copper always reminded him that the bridge was not yet built.

  “Release me from this trivia and I’ll finish it in thirty days,” he grumbled. But he’d grumble more in the ore mines, seeing to improvements in the hydraulics, the Copper reminded him.

  Bath done and breakfast down, the Copper hooked his mate at the wing and walked her to the balcony overlooking the now-public Imperial Gardens. And yes, he had a review to do, then a short speech to give to the newest generation of Drakwatch and Firemaidens.

  With his beautiful mate pacing behind, the Copper walked through the quarters of his tiny aerial host, still new and untested as a wet hatchling, but they were learning.

  Instead of reins, the warriors fought chained to their saddles. For their own safety, of course. But it also established who guided whom.r />
  He limped down a long line of dragons, with a few dragonelles sprinkled in, the red bands of the Firemaid oath around their necks. Each set of wings faced a rider, free thralls all—a fine-sounding status, as long as one didn’t think about it too much. Dragon and rider stared into each other’s eyes over a lance’s distance. Their armor was variegated, their weapons according to taste, but at least they all matched in their red cloaks. Not all the men were former dragon-riders; some were thralls who showed great loyalty and promise and skill at arms. And not all the dragons had once been hag-ridden. Those dragons who’d been victorious in combat had the Tyr’s laudi painted on their wings in inexpensive but long-lasting tones. The dragon-riders had the equivalent, called “tattooing” or some other odd-sounding Parl expression, on their arms and at the outer edges of their eyes and temples.

  Maturing hatchlings—clutchwinners, for the most part, including AuBalagrave’s own champion—stood between and behind the dragons and men they attended. Hatchlings bore food and carried wash water for the men, fetched boots and flying cloaks when called for. The human boys and girls polished scale, cleaned teeth with bristle brushes, and adjusted saddle pads with their nimble little fingers. The Copper hoped that in time a firmer alliance could be bred.

  In time, as he often told Rayg, whenever he presented them with a tender calf, advising that the liver go to the swelling Rhea.

  Imfamnia would have thought them poor work and too dreary-toned for words. So would SiMevolant, though he would have been arch about it. SiDrakkon would have approved, for the markings were grim-looking enough.

  “Let’s make it loud enough so the Tyr RuGaard hears it this time!” HeBellereth, the aerial host commander, roared.

  “This is my rider,” the ranks boomed in unison. “He is unique, an individual, and deserving of my respect.”

  The men recited the same speech as the dragons, switching rider for dragon.

  “Without my rider, I am nothing. Without me, my rider is nothing. If I fall, he dies. If he falls, I will see to it he rests on the empire’s ground. My blood is his nourishment. His sweat is mine. So be it until death or our Tyr releases us.”

  Of course, the men had to change the wording of the last, too.

  The Copper passed through the Black Rock, limping past bronzed skulls and captured banners hung from cut dragon reins. Thralls, drakes and drakka, dragons and dragonelles, and even a watchbat here and there bowed—or crossed their wings, in the case of the bats—to him.

  There was no more laughter at his awkwardness. A Skotl or two, and the odd Wyrr holdout or Anklene radical, glared at him hotly.

  They can hate as hard as they like, as long as they fear.

  He looked in on the workshop, and the thrall’s meal room. Rayg and Rhea and their growing brood stood with the rest, though their textiles and footwear were of much higher quality.

  He paused, and put his head close to his mate’s.

  “There’s so much still to be done. I believe before long we will long for those quiet evenings around the feast floor in Anaea.”

  “We’re in charge of the Lavadome now. We can do what we want,” Nilrasha said, smiling. A little piece of him deep inside turned cold. He could still admire her lines, her cool courage, and her tenacity at getting what she wanted. And above all, be grateful for what she had done for him. But she was no Tighlia.

  But at that moment, he would rather have had frail little Halaflora. Halaflora understood the burdens of rank and station. When his mood turned dark like this, part of him believed Nilrasha hungered for bows and scrapes as Imfamnia had once wanted expensive baubles.

  Then they went back up to the top level, or “their level,” as Nilrasha styled it. She nuzzled her head under his as he stepped out onto the platform overlooking the Gardens. What little was left of the Imperial line looked up at him. Lesser dragons lined the garden walls, drakes and drakka perched atop broken columns and darkvine arches.

  A pair of hatchlings batted a dragon-rider’s rotting severed head back and forth with their tails and had sport snapping at the flies seeking the putrescent flesh.

  The Drakwatch and Firemaidens looked up.

  Time for the words a Tyr had to say now and then, to remind everyone that life was more than banquets and hunts and mating ceremonies and discreet little intimacies.

  “Our species is at the beginning of a great awakening. The blighters had their Age of Wheels. Then the other hominids began the Age of Iron with a slaughter of our kind. Never forget the betrayal and fall of Silverhigh, or the fate that we in the Lavadome so narrowly escaped. The malice of hominids knows no charity or reason.

  “They must be subdued and tamed. Or they will do the same to us, as the Dragonblade once tried. How many other Dragon-blades are there beyond our borders?

  “Join me and look to our future. We need only master ourselves, and we can master the world! Today, here, atop this ancient stone, surrounded by the caves and egg shelves and trophies of our birthright, we dragons have inaugurated a new age. Let our enemies tremble, for now begins the Age of Fire!”

  Drakine Glossary

  FOUA: A product of the fire bladder. When mixed with the liquid fats stored within and then exposed to oxygen, it ignites into oily flame.

  GRIFF: The armored fans descending from the forehead and jaw that cover a dragon’s sensitive ear holes and throat pulse points in battle.

  GRIFF-TCHK: An instant, an immeasurably short amount of time.

  LAUDI: Brave and glorious deeds in a dragon’s life that make it into the lifesong.

  PRRUM: The low thrumming sound a dragon makes when it is pleased or particularly content.

  SAA: The rear legs of a dragon. The three rear true-toes are able to grip, but the fighting spur is little more than decoration.

  SII: The front legs of a dragon. The claws are shorter, and the fighting spur on the rear leg is closer to the other digits, and opposable. The digits are more elegantly formed for manipulation.

  TORF: A small gob from the fire bladder, used to provide a few moments of illumination.

  Draconic Personae

  (ALL MALES ARE NAMED USING MATURE DRAGON FORM)

  AGGRIFFOPSE—Tyr FeHazathant’s only male clutchwinner, mated to Ibidio, died years before the Copper’s arrival at the Lavadome.

  ANGALIA—Firemaid in Anaea.

  AUBALAGRAVE—member of the Drakwatch.

  AURON—the clutchwinner at the Copper’s hatching.

  ESTHEA—NeStirrath’s dead mate.

  FEHAZATHANT—Tyr at the time of the Copper’s arrival in the Lavadome.

  FELISSARATH—Upholder of Anaea.

  HALAFLORA—sickly daughter of AgGriffopse and Ibidio.

  HEBELLERETH—Skotl clan duelist dragon.

  IBIDIO—AgGriffopse’s mate.

  IMFAMNIA—daughter of AgGriffopse and Ibidio.

  JIZARA—the Copper’s weaker sister.

  KRTHONIUS—member of the Drakwatch.

  NESTIRRATH—chief trainer of the Drakwatch.

  NILRASHA—Firemaiden.

  NITHONIUS—Upholder of Bant.

  NIVOM—member of the Drakwatch.

  NOSOHOTH—majordomo of the Imperial line.

  NOTANNADON—duelist.

  RETHOTHANNA—Anklene historian.

  SIDRAKKON—Tighlia’s brother by mating to Tyr FeHazathant.

  SIMEVOLANT (golden drake)—AgGriffopse and Ibidio’s surviving clutchwinner.

  TIGHLIA—Tyr FeHazathant’s mate.

  TYR—title for the ruler of the Lavadome, usually used in lieu of a name.

  WISTALA—the Copper’s stronger sister.

  About the Author

  Photo by Ronald D. Frisch

  E. E. Knight graduated from Northern Illinois University with a double major in history and political science, then made his way through a number of jobs that had nothing to do with history or political science. He resides in Chicago. For more information on the author and his worlds, E. E. Knight invites you to visit hi
s Web site, vampjac.com.

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