by E. E. Knight
“Then why aren’t you with your mate? What drove you back to my mountains? Looking for dragons is dangerous work for any band of warriors, and you’re only one hominid. You surely didn’t come merely to tell me of your good fortune.”
“Events across the mountains delayed our happiness. We need a dragon. Or the advice of one, at least. It concerns other dragons, evil—”
AuRon held up a sii. If they wanted to hire him to hunt his kin, Hieba would have risked much in her travel to hear the word no. But could Naf be so stupid as to think—Surely not. In any case, AuRon remembered he had to attend to Unrush and his chieftains at their celebration.
“We will talk later.”
She knotted her fists, again looking like the petulant child AuRon had once known. “But Au—”
“Later, Berrysweet. We must hurry. You’ve been asleep, and it is probably already growing dark outside. You say you are a good rider?”
“I spent two years keeping up with the Red Guard. I can handle any horse, day or night.”
“I’m no horse. You’ll be atop my shoulders. We will fly. Walking is tiresome when you have wings.”
“Fly? On you?”
“I suppose I could grip you in my claws. You need clothing and more. I don’t have so much as a bowl and spoon about here for you.”
“Yes, AuRon, let’s! It’ll be like something out of a legend. Or a dream.”
“Then let’s give you a dream worthy of passing on to your children and they to theirs.”
Hieba and AuRon went to the downshaft. In the intervening years blighter masons had built up the cavern entrance, first with a rickety bamboo staircase and later a set of stairs chipped into the cavern’s slide, wide enough so a hominid could walk up without pressing its back to the cavern wall. The masons had also carved AuRon a set of sii holes, shaped like the faces of bellowing blighter warriors. AuRon used the gaping mouths to climb as Hieba took the stairs.
She kept pointing to familiar objects as they walked through the ruined city at the cavern’s mouth.
“The bats were really bad up there. Down that way was a room with beautiful tile . . . it was some kind of bathing cavern, but the running water was gone, and everything was just moldy and damp. There were lots of tools with the handles rotted off over there . . .”
“You remember much.”
“I remember you always pacing in the background while I explored.”
The tunnel widened out to the beginnings of the cavern city proper. AuRon halted. “I fly from here.”
Hieba crossed her arms, rubbing her palms on her elbows. “I wish you had reins, or a saddle, or even a mane.”
AuRon flattened himself to the ground, his body resembling a snake grown to colossal size. “Just hold on with your legs. My neck isn’t any wider than a horse’s body above my shoulders.”
He let Hieba put her hands across his back just above his forequarters. He twitched—throwing her to the ground in the process.
“Hey!” she squeaked.
“Sorry, dragons are sensitive when it comes to their necks. It’s the bit the assassins like to go for.”
“Maybe we should put a blanket over your back first, like with a horse.”
“I don’t have one. I’m not a horse. I can control myself better than that.”
AuRon regretted his statement when she tried again. This time she managed to swing her leg over his back and sit. AuRon fought the urge to roll around to get her off. He found his body jerking in all the wrong places. His back feet wanted to stamp; his tail kept swinging.
“Is this to warm up your muscles?” Hieba asked. He felt her hanging on with arms as well as legs.
“No. You feel like an itch I can’t scratch.”
“You want me to get off?”
“Yes, but don’t. I’ll get used to it. Maybe we should try walking for a while. I don’t want to shrug you off when we’re at the cloudline.”
AuRon started walking, stomping with his legs as he moved. The stomping helped, for some reason.
“This is different from a horse,” Hieba said. “You’re more side-to-side rather than up-and-down. You’re higher than a horse, too.”
AuRon curved his neck to look back at her; she was swinging back and forth as he planted first one foreleg, then the other.
“I’ve seen men riding elephants. They’re higher still, though a full-grown dragon is near that height.”
“How long until you’re that big?”
“If I live, hundreds of years. Dragons grow slowly once their wings are uncased.”
Hieba looked wistful. “Wish I could see that.”
“You saw NooMoahk. He was as big as we get.”
“He was old; he had sort of a sunken-in look. But I didn’t mean any dragon. I meant you. Elves and dwarves live a long time. Sad that humans and blighters don’t. We miss so much.”
AuRon threaded his way through the buildings and over piles of rubble, buildings-on-top-of-buildings to either side leaning over him. The old city’s empty windows looked blankly down on them, as if to say, I remember the mighty kings in their chariots parading this street. You are just wanderers in the graveyard of an empire, insignificant and forgettable.
“Hieba, there’s a philosopher named Awu. He was a dwarf of another time and age, who somehow ended up king of one of the Eastern Realms at the rim of the Typhoon Seas. Back then, the hominids were divided into ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ races; the elves and dwarves were considered the greater races, the humans and blighters the lesser ones. He said the shorter-lived races would be thriving when the others were gone and just legends. In his mind, the great races think only of themselves, the lesser live and build for their children and grandchildren’s world. He wrote, ‘Each of the Great Race stands on his own, and can rise to the stature of a colossus in the given span of years. Each of the Lesser stands on the shoulders of the last generation. In time, the pyramids of the Lesser will be the taller.’ ”
“Then perhaps my grandchildren—”
“You and Naf have a clutch?”
“No. No, not yet. With matters as they are . . . I’ll explain later.”
They could see the sky, framed by the fanglike hanging towers of Kraglad. “I’m going to open my wings now,” he warned. “Let me know if you feel like you’re losing your grip.” AuRon felt her slender limbs tighten about his neck, just where the collar Djer removed had rested. He felt a tug at his neck. “Owww,” Hieba said.
“Leave the chain alone,” AuRon said. “It’s a dwarsaw, not a halter.”
“I remembered it from long ago. It didn’t look dangerous.”
“Just take my neck.”
He dragon-dashed forward—wings flapping—and rose into the air.
“Heeeeeeee!” Hieba shrieked, in delight this time. AuRon felt her arms go around his neck, but didn’t dare look back; while taking off, he needed to stick his neck out stiffly forward.
He was above the old rooftop gardens of the city, rising for the inverted towers. He dipped one wing a trifle and banked out of the mountain-rending cavern and into the late afternoon sun. Only when he caught an updraft and shot to the cloudline did he risk looking back at Hieba.
She still had her legs tight about his neck; the blood vessels there throbbed under her grip. Her mouth was open, and her shoulder-length hair fluttered in the wind like a black banner. Her skin was flushed from bosom to face, and her white teeth shone against her coppery skin.
“Good?” AuRon asked.
“This is . . . this is . . . this is . . . rapturous!” she shouted.
“Enjoy.”
“Enjoy? Why do you ever land? If I were you, I’d find the tallest mountains in the world and never leave the clouds.”
“You’ve never lived through a storm in the heights. It gets cold. Dragons like it cool and dark, not ice-coated with the wind howling.”
“Fly! AuRon, let’s fly forever!”
“You see more world this way. But we’re just off to a village w
e could have walked to in two days when you were little. We’ll be there before the sun touches the horizon.”
“Blighters. I don’t want to think about them. I just want to touch more clouds,” she giggled, sticking her arms out in imitation of AuRon’s wings.
“I’ll go down a little. I think you need thicker air.”
AuRon crabbed down until they were able to see individual branches on the trees and rocks below. Flying was more of an effort at this altitude, with the unpredictable winds, but he thrilled Hieba by plunging suddenly off precipices and sweeping low over meadows. A few blighter herders waved their crooks as he passed.
They circled Unrush’s throne-village. Its walls were stone now, and there were monuments to the fallen at the Battle of the Misted Dawn years ago. More skulls decorated the path to the dragon-throne, and Unrush had a stone-walled house with a slate roof, with three subhouses for his wives branching off the main structure, and a private walled garden. His lava-rock throne, its rock prised by AuRon from the edge of the southern ocean, stood under a canopy of fig trees. The thin-limbed boughs had been chosen as the fruit of his paramountcy.
AuRon landed to the pounding of drum and gong. Blighters had meat and vegetable roasting over charcoal pits, and the populace had decorated all the dwellings with red flowers. Blighter-females in garlands of red and white, skirts tied about their waists, made obeisance as AuRon folded his wings.
Unrush came out of his house, wearing finery taken from the bodies of his victims, cleaned, and cut to blighter taste and style—layer after layer, as if to say that he could afford to wear nine sets of clothing at a time. He bore a bronze basin, slopping over with wine.
“Drink, O Sky Lord, drink, wash, and our welcome take!”
AuRon lapped, just enough to wet his tongue.
“Unrush, it’s an odd fate that you brought as a captive the person I most wanted to see. She’s lost her pack and saddle. Could your wives find her something to wear to the feast? I’d like you to show her the hospitality of the Umazheh.”
“Yes, O Sky Lord, I will,” Unrush said. He pointed at Hieba and called to one of his wives, or perhaps a sister. AuRon still had trouble with the complicated blighter family trees, where a chieftain’s brothers and sisters held more responsibility than his wives. Hieba looked uncertain, but the royal blighter and some girl-children pulled and pointed until she went into one of the smaller wife-annexes.
“The spits groan under their weight, AuRon,” Unrush said. “We must eat soon. But news comes with Balazeh. From the deserts, and north. It is for us to discuss on this auspicious day.”
“What news?”
“War. War such as the world has not seen in a redwood’s age. Umazheh of waste, Umazheh of swamp, Umazheh of the high steppe—the last of the charioteers—gather.”
“For what? Who gathers them?”
“Holy ones. A magus out of the north. They speak strong words. They foretell of the death throes of accursed Hypat.”
“Hypat is far from here. It would take a season, and you would not even be at the river gap.”
“Distance not count, enemies not count, time not count. Only the new era counts.”
This last sounded a little singsong to AuRon’s ear, and Unrush said it without his usual inflection.
“When did you hear this?”
“Balazeh arrived the news,” Unrush said, pointing to a tall, longer-legged blighter with purple tattoos covering his neck and shoulders like a cloak. “A prophet came to him, and crowns and new thrones were promised. Six days since passed. We will meet on the eastern river at winter solstice. Will you war-call?”
“I will have to think about this. It is not like our last battle, when men came to drive you out of these mountains. Balazeh and his holy man call you to destroy the homes of others.”
“Once all this was ours. It will be again.”
“Once there were trees on these slopes. What would you do if trees grew again here?”
“Cut them.”
Hieba returned, cutting off further discourse. She wore clothes mostly made of bright beads and copper bands, a pleasant accent to her dark hair and eyes. She stood at AuRon’s side.
“AuRon, they have wonderful things in there. I never thought of blighters as artistic, but they are fine craftsfolk.”
Unrush’s people gathered in a circle, singing, first one side of the village and then the other when their voices tired. Hieba, Unrush, Unrush’s family, the fireblades, and any number of local dignitaries flanked AuRon, as he was the honored guest. Blighter females circled endlessly, all traveling in the same direction to avoid confusion as they distributed platters of food and bowls of wine. Laden blighters hauled sputtering joints from the charcoal pits and placed them on a woven mat set before AuRon.
Hieba attracted attention, as well. The blighter females came forward to admire her soft hair and delicate—at least in comparison with a blighter’s—hands. A group of males clustered in the center of the ring of food bearers. Every now and then, one would charge forward, and leap and stamp, waving his weapon in the air and howling until Hieba clapped.
“They’re not so bad once you get to know them,” she said.
“Whatever you do, don’t get up or touch one. It means you’d be his wife.”
“What?” Hieba said, shrinking back from a warrior springing shoulder-high on powerful legs and smiting invisible enemies.
“Those are suitors, not performers. Humans and blighters can mate, you know, but the offspring is sterile, like a mule.”
“What if I get up and touch you?”
“Tribal custom is rich and full of precedence, but I don’t think it covers that. Dragons figure into their traditions as icons of luck, or dread.”
She edged closer on her sitting-mat to AuRon, and smelled his basin of wine.
“Pfhew, what is that, AuRon?”
“Wine. Mixed with blood, or so it tastes. It’s part of the celebration. This is a ceremony about victory in battle.”
She dipped her hand in it and tasted the mixture from her palm.
Unrush and the other blighters gasped and muttered to each other at the gesture.
“What did I do?”
“It’s not so much what you did. It’s what it meant. Only mated couples eat from the same dish.”
AuRon turned to Unrush. “This human is as a daughter to me; she shares my repast. Please show her the same respect you do to me.”
Unrush waved a hand, and the blighters quieted.
The celebration started in earnest. Children ran across the village center, waving red-feathered streamers attached to the end of sticks. The fireblades followed, going through the blighter military evolutions: storm front, whirl and fade, flank sweep, and crescent hunt. They beat their spears on their shields, stamped, and shouted in time to their drums. When the display was over, their wives joined them, and the muscular warriors picked up the females and bore them overhead, some using just one arm to the howls of delight from those too old or two young for such feats. Hieba enjoyed it immensely, rattling her beads and striking her copper bracelets together.
All at once, there was a disturbance at the gate. AuRon raised his head above the crowd and saw a cluster of blighters bearing torches. The ends burned with a bluish flame. The intruding blighters approached. One rode some kind of camel with hair trailing just above the ground. The rider waved the ones at the gate away, and they shrank from him like scolded children.
Unrush stood up and shouted something, and the revelers fell back before the stranger’s approach.
“Stay close to me,” AuRon said to Hieba. “If I open my wings, get on my neck.” AuRon took a few steps toward the gate to put his length between the strange blighters and Unrush’s people. Unrush and a few of his chieftains came forward. Neither group showed unsheathed weapons, but there was a tension in the air.
“This is Balazeh?” Unrush asked his guest.
“Yes. That is Staretz, a magus of the north. He is strong in wiza
rdry. With him is Korutz, lieutenant to the King of Charioteers in the high plains. Make obeisance.”
“It is for the visitor to do,” Unrush said. “Even if the King of Charioteers comes himself.”
Staretz, to AuRon, was just a tough old blighter, looking like a gnarled tree clinging among high rocks, dried out and twisted but fiercely intent on survival. He did not descend from his camel, but cleared his throat, waiting for a greeting. Unrush stood his ground and ignored the elbow of Balazeh prodding him.
One of the magus’s retainers broke the silence. “So it is true. There is a dragon in these mountains. Who sits on the renowned dragon-throne, word of which has come even to the north?”
“Who wishes to know?” one of Unrush’s sons asked. “It is for him to make introductions.”
“Stop this,” AuRon rumbled. “Such an important visitor comes, and we cannot welcome him properly while he sits on his mount.”
Staretz made no move, but the camel’s legs folded up beneath its cloak of fur.
“Dragon-king, you shame two proud Umazheh,” Staretz said in Drakine, with surprising facility. AuRon had never heard it pronounced so well by a hominid. “Staretz of the Hardgrounds speaks to the Umazheh of these mountains.”
“Unrush of Uldam’s Gates welcomes you,” Unrush said, coming forward with a mat under each arm. He unrolled one on the ground for the visitor, and when the magus was comfortable, sat himself opposite.
“Thank you, great king,” Staretz said.
“No king,” Unrush said. “Just a high chieftain, by the fates and this dragon’s mercy.”
“The King of Charioteers says more, and sends his lieutenant Korutz to you as an ambassador. They say your domain covers these mountains from where the sun touches at dawn in the east to the last light of dusk in the west.”
