Dragon Champion

by E. E. Knight

  Roc

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, December 2005

  Copyright © Eric Frisch, 2005

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Ebook ISBN: 9781440622038

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Knight, E. E.

  Dragon champion / by E. E. Knight.

  p. cm.—(The fire age ; bk. 1)

  ISBN: 9780451460479

  1. Dragons—Fiction. I. Title

  PS3611.N564D73 2005

  813’.6—dc22 2005015603

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  penguin.com

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  FOR STEPHANIE, WHO JOINED HER SONG WITH MINE

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  A Note on Dragon Names

  BOOK ONE - Hatchling

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  BOOK TWO - Drake

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  BOOK THREE - Dragon

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  A NOTE ON DRAGON NAMES

  Careful readers will observe that a mature male dragon’s name changes after he makes his first flight. By tradition, the pronunciation of a dragon’s name changes as he achieves maturity, with emphasis shifting from the first syllable to the second. When Auron’s father, AuRel, was a hatchling, he would have been called Aurel, as one would say the word aural. When he became a fledged dragon, the pronunciation changed so that it would rhyme with noel. The ancient practice of calling the surviving male hatchling by the father’s name until he breathed his first fire had died out by the time Auron’s egg was laid.

  BOOK ONE

  Hatchling

  BESTIARIES ARE WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS.

  —Islebreadth

  Chapter 1

  The hatchling tasted his first air. Cool and dry compared with the dampness inside the egg, its strangeness set him aquiver. He had only just discovered a new world in the slow awakening, one so different from the muted patterns and colors, muffled echoes and stale tastes of the old. He had been snug in his dark little space, drowsing and dreaming, when sharp, cracking noises had woken him. He’d suddenly hated the enclosure in which he’d floated for so long. Instinctively, he tried to uncurl his long neck. He had jerked his chin upward, feeling the growth on his nose strike the inner surface of the hard cocoon. Three more taps, and the shell had cracked.

  The air relayed so many new impressions that his senses rebelled, and he gave a tiny snort.

  He wiggled his nose and widened the hole. When he could get his snout well out and open his mouth, he took a real breath. His long lungs, running almost the length of his back, filled entirely with air. Its zest, the new sensation of his lungs inflating and deflating, invigorated him as much as the rich dose of oxygen to his bloodstream. He pulled his head back, and the sawtooth on his still-wet nose opened the egg further. Now he could get his head out.

  The light, dim though it was, hurt his eyes. Scrabbling sounds and a deep, rhythmic whooshing above roused his curiosity. Determined, he turned his head.

  A presence, huge and green, lay curled around him—strange yet familiar—and beyond that, he sensed an even larger enclosure of rock and shadow. Another casing, many-many times larger than the first? Echoes played off the hard stone, chasing each other through the great space.

  He wriggled his head free. Now he could use his neck to look around. A nasty drop hung before him. Many neck-lengths below, two shapes writhed; both had necks like his, with equally long tails projecting out of their hindquarters. Identical in every aspect save color, they pushed and clawed at each other using four stubby legs. Their mouths yawned agape, displaying sharp white teeth, and atop their snouts stood sawtooths just like the one he’d used to poke his way out of his shell. Both the combatants had short crests covering their necks. One of the hatchlings was a rich ruby color, and it sank its teeth into the coppery opponent, rending flesh and muscle and eliciting a plaintive cry.

  Something about those crests sweeping back from the armored ridge of their eyes and forehead put him into a seething rage.

  He longed to join this contest. He uncoiled his body; his fractured egg was no match for his new strength. It separated, and he twisted over so he could crawl.

  The crack of the egg opening interrupted the red hatchling in its triumph. It released its opponent’s torn foreleg and looked up. In the flick of an eye, it scuttled to the rock face and began to climb toward him.

  He did not wait to meet it amongst the other eggs. He moved to the edge of the shelf to get it on the way up, instinctively wanting the advantage of the high ground.

  A wet slipperiness slowed him, and he looked down to see a sagging mass dragging from his belly. One of his legs was caught in it. Frenzied, he tore at it with his rear limbs. He arched his back and parted from the drogue. If he felt pain, the desire to get at the other crested hatchling smothered it. He gained the edge just as the red’s head appeared. Its shining slit-pupil eyes widened as it saw him come to push it back down.

  But the red was strong, stronger. It got its thick shoulders tucked under his narrower ones and muscled over the edge of the precipice. They faced each other, mouths open and declaring battle with little squawks of fury.

  He forgot the cave, forgot the giant green presence behind him, forgot the faint tapping emanating from the last two eggs. He went for the red crest, to shove it off the ledge and put an end to it.

  His bites scored at the red’s armored skin and crest to no effect. Before he knew it, he was on his back, the red’s gaping jaws finding his throat. More frustrated than afraid, he clawed at the red’s leathery underbelly. A mist veiled his vision.
>
  The pressure on his throat vanished. As his vision cleared, he saw Red fighting with the other crested hatchling. His copper brother had somehow climbed the cavern wall to the egg shelf, intent on revenge for its crippled limb. It rode Red’s back, grasping at the back of Red’s neck just under the armored crest. He turned on his side, momentarily too weak to stand, and watched. Red writhed and rolled, trying to get the maimed hatchling beneath it.

  He flicked out his tongue and smelled blood, blood, everywhere. Pouring from him, from the wounded copper, and from Red’s belly. A tear dripped there, where Red’s egg sac had been attached.

  He moved his head. Some strength still remained in his neck muscles, and he used them. He drove the sawtooth on his snout into the red’s belly, finding the umbilical hole. He dragged upward, gutting his nest mate.

  Blood flooded his nostrils and eyes as he righted himself to force the prong in deeper. He heard one agonized cry, cut off as the copper hatchling grasped the red’s throat. Alarmed peeps sounded behind him.

  The struggle ceased; Copper dropped the crushed neck.

  He opened his mouth and advanced on his remaining sibling. Copper shifted sideways, shielding its injured limb. Too near the edge. He bull-rushed the copper crest and began to push, using the armored ridge above his own eyes as a battering ram. Weakened by the maimed foreleg, the hatchling went over with a scream.

  The fall was not fatal. He looked over the edge and saw Copper lying quiescent. Rapid panting echoed from below. At the sound of eggs breaking, he turned.

  Two more siblings had their heads out of their eggs, squeaking weakly. Green. Uncrested. He relaxed and moved toward Red’s corpse. He now knew hunger. Lapping the pooled blood did not seem enough; he began to chew at the corpse. After sufficient worrying with his curved teeth, he pulled away a mouthful of flesh and followed it with another. The meal made him flush with strength, so much so that when his copper nest mate again ascended to the ledge, he pushed it back over with no trouble at all.

  The others, the females, took forever to get out of their shells. When they finally joined him at the corpse, still dragging the deflated balloons of the umbilical sacs they were too weak to get free of, he let them eat. He felt the urge of thirst and moved off from the corpse to a narrow corner of the ledge, where he drank from a little trickle of water running down the cavern wall. It felt almost as invigorating as eating, but nowhere near as good as pushing his brother off the shelf.

  He looked around the cavern. Glowing blue-green splashes grew at the edges of puddles at the bottom of the immense cave. They seemed to thrive best nearest the cliff wall where he smelled dragon waste, strange and yet familiar. Tiny things, tinier than he, lived in the roof of the cavern. The sights of his new world so fascinated him that he failed to notice his brother gain the egg shelf once again.

  The piping of his sisters alerted him to the male’s presence. He scrambled back to the corpse, but the cripple clutched a torn-off hunk of tail in its jaws and scuttled off the ledge, moving in a clumsy fashion but almost as fast as he could with four good legs. He had to content himself with opening his jaws and screaming down at the coppery shape on the cavern floor. The male ignored him and gnawed on the piece of tail.

  “Dear Auron. My pride. One day you’ll be a worthy dragon.”

  Thus Auron learned his name. He turned a quick circle, looking for the source of the voice seeming to whisper in his ear.

  “This sound is the voice of your mother, Auron. I’m glad you can hear me; it means you’re healthy.”

  He heard a trill from above him and saw Mother’s spade-shaped head looking down. His mother, big enough to be a world herself, reclined against the cave wall. He tasted the rich nepenthe of the air around her; it smelled better even than the bloody tang of the air around his deceased sibling.

  “I know this is strange, and you can’t speak yet, not until you’re grown a bit and learned. But you can understand—even in the egg, you could understand. I showed you stories, remember?”

  His mother’s voice was familiar, but he could remember no stories, just vague dreams of floating in light, pictures, sensations that rolled about in his head unmoored. Her speech, after its first startle, relaxed him. He felt his eyelids closing.

  “Time for you to sleep and grow, little Auron. Don’t worry, you and your sisters are safe, we are deep-deep. No assassins will get here, for Father is on guard.”

  She began to sing, and he recognized the rhythm of her tune, not strange at all. He dozed off, lulled by the comforting cadence of the song.

  Listen my hatchling, for now you shall hear

  Of the only seven slayers a dragon must fear.

  First beware Pride, lest belief in one’s might

  Has you discount the foeman who is braving your sight.

  Never Envy other dragons their wealth, power, or home

  For dark plots and plans will bring death to your own.

  Your Wrath shouldn’t win, when spears strike your scale

  Anger kills cunning, which you will need to prevail.

  A dragon must rest, but Sloth you should dread

  Else long years of napping let assassins to your bed.

  ‘Greed is good,’ or so foolish dragons will say

  Until piles of treasure bring killing thieves where they lay.

  Hungry is your body, and at times you must feed

  But Gluttony makes fat dragons, who can’t fly at their need.

  A hot Lust for glory, gems, gold, or mates

  Leads reckless young drakes to the blackest of fates.

  So take heed of this wisdom, precious hatchling of mine,

  And the long years of dragonhood are sure to be thine.

  Chapter 2

  There weren’t any grays on my side of the family,” Father grumbled.

  Larger even than Mother, Father rested on a massive stalagmite, wrapped about it like a constricting snake. His fiery eyes, under the armored ridges that led back to his crest in its six-horned glory, glowered down on the brood. Father’s bronze scales reflected the muted aqua light of the cave moss.

  To little Auron, Father had a harsh, intimidating odor, very different from Mother’s comforting one. He tucked his head into his gray flank, a little afraid at Father’s tone, but resisted the instinct to close his eyes.

  “You know very well my father was a gray, AuRel. When I sang my lineage at our mating, it didn’t bother you.”

  Father pulled back, raised his mighty neck high, and snorted. For a moment it looked to Auron as if he might bite Mother.

  But he brought his head down and flicked his forked tongue, drawing it across her face. “I was watching your wings, my love. They hypnotized me. I had never seen such a span on a maiden before. I hardly listened.”

  His parents touched noses at the memories evoked, and Auron heard a low thrumming.

  “We have every right to prumm to each other—three on the shelf. Not bad for our first clutch,” Mother said. She pulled Auron’s two sisters closer to her with her tail. The hatchlings peeped and yawned at the touch, but didn’t wake.

  “But still, of all the infernal drafts,” Father continued. “A red, a copper, and a gray. What happens? The red is killed, the copper is maimed, and the gray has the nest!”

  “The red fought well, my lord. Just too eager, impetuous. He left the copper without finishing it.”

  “Just like his grandfather, darkness keep his bones. A besung dragon, he. I still don’t see how a gray got the better of him or the copper.”

  “He used his egg horn, my lord.”

  “He did what?”

  “Gutted him from the yolk sac up. I hardly believed my eyes.”

  Father looked down at Auron, a new interest in his eyes. “Clever little blighter.”

  “Eggs and legs! Don’t call the pride of our clutch a blighter, AuRel! Like it or not, he is your champion. It’s for you to see that he lives to loose his first fire.”

  “I wonder . . . ,” Father muse
d. “A gray. Thin skinned: the first elf with a bow that—”

  “He’ll be quick. Silent,” his mother countered.

  “Perhaps.”

  “All the less hunger to fill. Remember your youth, the chances you took.”

  Auron got a mind-picture from his father. Stolen sheep, screaming warriors, the pounding of hunting horses. He felt old scars, crusted over with misshapen scales. He shivered.

  “See!” Mother exclaimed. “He takes to your mind already. He learns from you. Teach him.”

  “In good time. Perhaps the copper will reclaim the shelf?”

  “Not likely. Auron has weight on him already, and is alert and quick.”

  Father looked down at the copper, who had retreated to a crevice in the cave wall away from the egg shelf. “It might be kinder to just—”

  “No. He shall have his chance. I hear him hunting slugs and rats. Appetite will soon drive him outside. You have fathered two males, my lord. Think of it! Four survivors of five eggs. The words will sound fine in your lifesong.”

  Armored fans expanded from Father’s crest at the thought, covering sensitive earholes and the pulse points behind the angle in his jaw where the twin neck hearts worked, then returned to their sheaths. Auron felt his own griff descend a little, but they seemed thin and flimsy by comparison.

  “Perhaps you are right. A worthy line for the battle roar,” Father said, as though he’d thought of the idea himself. “Though you may have to help me with it. Wordplay is not my strength.”

  “I remember every word of your mating song, harsh though it was to my ears. But I took to the sky with you nonetheless.”

  “If my song was lacking, what reason had you?”

  Mother’s skin darkened again, and Auron saw a mind-picture of Father shining in the glare of the Upper World, only four horns on his head but still mighty, beating his wings so as to bend the trees as he sang.