by E. E. Knight
AuRon cocked an ear, reminding himself to send Ausurath off to retrieve the bucket.
“News, news, hear me, O Good Woooooooooolves!” he heard.
“The blighters are probably fighting again,” AuRon said. “Every cairn-building starts a feud.”
He’d invited a few families of blighters from the rugged Northwest Coast of the Inland Ocean to settle on the isle, where they could mine and herd in safety, trading the rather poor ores to be found on the island for the protection of the dragons. While not as intelligent as elves or as industrious as dwarves, they were easier to deal with than other hominid races.
He glanced up the hillside, where Natasatch was watching Istach and Varatheela stalk some goats. Varatheela’s tail quivered just like his sister Wistala’s on the hunt. Istach tended to be quiet and reserved, perhaps because of the odd dark stripes on her green scale. The males were forever quoting some bit of hatchling rhyme they overheard their mother say when the parents thought their hatchlings asleep.
She born with stripes looks to a bitter fate,
As many suitors as stripes, but never to mate.
Istach gave as good as she got. She liked to weave the scales on her brothers’ tails as they slept, so when they twitched to wakefulness each yelped as the scales pinched or tore free.
He sighed. Of the six dragons of his family, he was the only survivor. Unless his brother, maimed in the hatching duel, still lived. Not that he deserved his heartsbeat. He’d betrayed the rest of them to the dwarves.
Oh, Tala. It’s a hard world—for both dragons and goats.
Natasatch raised her head as well. She’d picked up enough wolf-speech to understand an alarm.
“O good woooooooolves! Strangers on the island, trail and spoor on morning-side downwind, to the burned clear and fjord-caves. Pass this news to Firelong, O Good Wooooooooooolves!”
Birchfang hopped up on a smooth-topped rock that reminded AuRon of a sea turtle he’d once met and began to pass the news.
“Don’t bother with that,” AuRon said. “I heard. Thank your pack, friend. I’ll fly north to Grass Point and bring back a moose for you first chance I get.”
Birchfang’s mate looked at her husband, pride shining in her eyes. Though they were both young, they’d already founded their own pack. The freshly named Mist Hunters had a range nearly as great as the whole woodlands of their birth. Here there were no men to catch wolves in cruel traps and nail their pelts to barn doors and fenceposts.
Natasatch and her hatchlings joined them. While the hatchlings swapped stories and the males set to wrestling again, AuRon relayed the details Natasatch had missed. At her request the wolves repeated the warning so she could learn.
“See, the wolves are worth a few sheep and goats. More than,” AuRon said.
“I never disagreed, my love. Remember, the words were Ouistrela’s. She hates fish and shell-crawlers and blubber and begrudges every mouthful of red meat. She resents the wolves, and you for bringing them.”
Ouistrela was a brave dragon-dame. Her fury had helped free the glacier-hung Isle of Ice from the dragon-breeding wizard. But without an enemy to fight, she quarreled at any opportunity, and AuRon had long ago learned that something about his leathery skin put her off.
“I’ll see what this is about,” AuRon said.
“We’ll help you fight the invaders, fazer!” Ausurath yapped and Istach rattled her griff in agreement.
“A fight is the last thing I want,” AuRon said.
“Stalk in caution, AuRon,” Natasatch said. She used his name only when she grew serious. Otherwise it was “my love” when she felt playful and “my lord” with a good deal of nostril-twitching when he waxed pompous and imperious over family policies.
“A scaleless dragon learns early to do nothing but,” AuRon said, nuzzling the closed griff at the back of her cheek and tapping his hatchlings each on the snout with a sii. They shared a brief, affectionate prrum.
He launched himself into the air and first found Zan the tradesdwarf. Zan wandered the coasts in an open oarship with a blighter crew. In return for exclusive rights to take beaver and ermine from the patches of woods in the soggy central valley, he did odd jobs and carried a few messages. AuRon suspected that some of the other dragons on the island traded loose scale for a few coins or bars of working iron, but that was their business.
Zan denied any knowledge of strangers and warned AuRon not to burn his boat and oarblighters by mistake.
Then he turned east and found the yearling wolf who’d passed the warning, and from him met up with the sister of Birchfang’s mate, who’d discovered the stranger’s trail.
The she-wolf was only too happy to leave off digging for chipmunks and trot over to guide him, ears and tail up at the prospect of a good hunt.
He found them in the old dragon-rider caves. First he tracked by scent, then the echo of stone being moved and orders issued.
They were seeking treasure, not revenge, then. There’d been one or two unfortunate encounters with men of the barbarian coast, come through dangerous seas to avenge brothers or fathers. Better still, there was no smell of dogs. Hominids were hard enough to deal with without their snarling hounds hanging off your throat and loins.
Good. Treasure-hunters would have more regard for their skins.
They’d set a few warning-traps in the outer passages, strings of scrap metal hung from wires designed to spin and clang like wind chimes at the low bits of the tunnel ceilings where a dragon’s back might strike them.
But AuRon wasn’t in a hurry; he was more curious than outraged at the trespass. He crept through the caves as wary as though the Dragonblade might be lurking around the next bend.
Hearing faint tapping and scraping, he stepped forward into the old baths. The water no longer ran, though a few pools of brackish water were refreshed at every rain and bore a thick film of glowing moss and lichen.
They’d left footprints. A small party, fewer than ten.
At the other end of the baths he discovered a sort of wood contraption full of springs and wires with an ugly barbed javelin set in it, triggered by an old shutter set on a peg. Interesting. If he stepped on the shutter, it would flatten a peg, which would release a line, which he guessed would fire the awful thing.
The hatchlings would have to see this. It looked clever enough to be produced by the dwarves of the Chartered Company.
They were at work in the old dragon-rider dining hall, which could perhaps be mistaken for a throne room, for it had elaborate stonework and there was a raised area at one end where musicians had once played.
To enter, he first had to unhook another pair of chains designed to loose some dozens of thin metal disks. None of it smelled as though it had been dipped in poison. He tucked them behind his ear. The hatchlings would have their fill of metal tonight!
Moving a scale’s breadth at a time, he put his head into the room, making use of shadow.
Two candles and a lantern lit the scene.
The strangers were prying open rusted doors at the old lifting chutes that carried food up from the galleys. A rather filthy dwarf looked like he’d just crawled down the old toilet-dump.
He made a quick count: three humans, two elves, and the dwarf scraping himself with an old chair-leg. They were well arrayed for battle or for climbing, with gear and assorted deadly-looking weapons. One of the elves was an attractive female, insofar as he could judge, and had long black vines of hair that matched the feathers of a raven perched on her shoulder in shine.
“There’s some kind of blockage. A vault door.” A voice echoed up from the galley chute. “Greasy as sausage-gut in here. Can’t get a grip.”
They’d found the old lift-platform at the kitchens. Surprising that some metal-hungry hatchling hadn’t crawled down and devoured it the way all the knives and skewers had disappeared. Of course, it was big, so it would have had to be broken into bite-sized pieces. Not worth the effort.
“At last! I told you!” the raven-t
oting she-elf said. The other elf ignored her, lost in a stained book. “That burned lodge was a waste of effort. The vault is down there.”
So they spoke Parl. Good. He’d forgotten what little Hypatian he’d learned, and dragon-throats weren’t designed for the grunts of the barbarous northern tongues.
“The wizard’s vault!” the dwarf said. “But why so small and frail a lift? Gold is heavy.”
“All the slower to sack it, then,” a man put in. He had a close-shorn beard and black teeth. AuRon thought a few good rinses with fine sand after mealtimes would benefit him in breath and health.
He fought down a snort. The only thing they’d find in the kitchens would be piles of charcoal and skeletons of rats. Why couldn’t they chase fables somewhere other than his island? He’d better warn them off before Ouistrela sniffed wind of their presence.
“May I help you?” he asked in Parl.
“Yi! Yi!” the male elf shrieked, loose pages flying as he vanished behind a shelf that had once held casks of ale. “Dragon!”
“ ’Tis Shadowcatch the Black, returned,” the elf’s raven squawked in birdspeech. “ ’Ware, for he’s fierce.”
“No, ’tis AuRon the Gray, standing in a bit of cave-dark,” AuRon said back in the bird tongue.
The vine-haired elf froze, head cocked.
“Get me out of here,” a voice echoed up from the lift-shaft.
The dwarf swung a vast shield, fitted at the front with a spear-head and ugly spikes all around the sides, big enough to cover him entirely save for another spike at the peak of his helm. The men, led by the big brave fellow with trimmed facial hair and black teeth, upped their swords and spears. One held a round shield covered in green dragonscale. AuRon felt his firebladder pulse.
“Spread out! The creature can’t burn us all,” the trim-faced man said. He raised a coal black sword with gleaming silver edges.
The explorers spread out.
“I’ve no need to kill anyone,” AuRon said.
“Dragons deceive with their tongues!” the dwarf shouted, creeping forward behind his shield. AuRon heard clicking noises echoing from behind the shield and wondered what sort of contraption the dwarf was readying. He thought it best to get down behind a broken pillar.
“Am I to die in this dark hole? Help!” the voice from the shaft called. “Pull, for the love of Stormbeard!”
“A coward at heart, like all its kind,” the man with the black teeth said. “Lurking in the shadows.”
AuRon raised his head. “Let’s have some light and—”
He ducked again and an elvish arrow clattered off his crest. An instant sooner and it would have been in his eye.
“—warmth, I was going to say,” AuRon finished, risking a peep around the fallen pillar. The men and the dwarf were still stepping forward, moving from pillar to overturned table to heap of old pottery, wary and ready for flame.
“Fyerbin, check that passage,” the voice from the shaft echoed as they did so. “Fyerbin, scale that wall. Fyerbin, crawl down that hole. I’m always going first and I’m always getting the shaft. Did you hear that, Halfmoon? Getting the shaft—”
“Shhh,” the elf with the raven said. “Ghastmath, hold there. Let’s hear what the dragon has to say.”
“Never!” The dwarf stamped an iron-shod foot. His beard held only the dimmest kind of red vestigial glow—either he was a very poor dwarf or he’d washed away much of the glowing moss that most dwarves cultivated in their beards.
“Fyerbin seven-toes, thanks to that blighter at the Ghioz border-post. Fyerbin, bones forgotten in this cold hole. What goes on up there?” The voice echoed up from the hole.
The men looked as though they were nerving themselves for a charge, and the dwarf sidestepped down the side of the dining hall, keeping stone to back and pointed shield to dragon.
“Perhaps if you told me what you seek?” AuRon asked.
AuRon dashed across the back of the dining hall, spreading a curtain of fire. It pooled and burned, even on the floor slippery with muck.
“The wyrm’s emptied his fire,” the dwarf called. “We’ve got it!”
“Now we’ve the advantage,” the man with the black teeth said, leaping between two puddles of flame with silvered sword whirling elegantly.
“Would somebody restrain him before he hurts himself?” AuRon said, backing toward the entrance arch.
“Ghastmath!” the elf called. “Let’s hear the dragon out.”
Ghastmath, the black-toothed man, ignored her, but the dwarf had more to say: “Tell that to my dead uncles, after our good king Fangbreaker listened to Wistala the Oracle—”
AuRon froze in shock.
“She mazed him into folly,” the dwarf continued. “Don’t listen!”
“Repeat what you said, dwarf,” AuRon said, rounding on the little carbuncle of shield and helm.
The warrior Ghastmath, fire reflecting on his blade and cutting red shadows into his face, lunged forward with a cry. The point of his blade pierced AuRon’s breast—
AuRon whipped his head down in riposte, hooking the human under his shoulder plate with the tiny spur on his nose—an egg-breaker that most dragons lose within a week of hatching—and hurling him across the room. The blade clattered to the floor, smelling of dragonblood.
Kung!
A projectile like a small boat-anchor shot out of the dwarf’s shield, trailing a line. AuRon hugged the floor.
“Beast moves like old Gan himself.” The dwarf added a few curses that AuRon remembered from the push-pull dwarves in the traveling towers.
The line fell across his back. He reached up with a saa and grabbed it. The dwarf fumbled with gear behind his shield.
AuRon yanked the line hard and the dwarf flew across the dining hall and landed at his feet. AuRon had not yet grown to a size where he could easily carry a metal-clad dwarf in a single sii, especially if the dwarf decided to struggle, so he settled for perching both sii on his back.
AuRon heard joints popping.
The dwarf grunted and almost succeeded in rising. Dwarves were counted the strongest of the hominids, but this one must have the thews of an ox.
“Can we stop this nonsense?” AuRon asked, ducking under another arrow coming for his eye.
“Ssssst!” the elf-archer cursed.
The man Ghastmath rolled over, cradling his side. “What’s holding you back?” Whether he spoke to AuRon or to his wary men, sheltering behind pillars, AuRon couldn’t decide.
The dwarf produced a short blade. AuRon bore down until he dropped it with a gasp.
“ ’Tis AuRon the Gray at that, he that killed the Wyrmmaster, the Wizard of the Isle of Ice,” the raven chattered in the elf’s ear. “He’ll keep a bargain. The Iwensi Gap dwarves once trusted him to guard their caravan-coin.”
“Yes, dragon, let’s talk,” the elf with the raven said. “Sheathe weapons! Put down that bow, Cattail.”
“And get Fyerbin out of this reeking hole!” called the voice from the shaft.
The elf stepped forward, and her raven fluttered warily to the ceiling. “My name is Halfmoon. I’ve no tokens of parley, but I’m willing to share anything we find with you.”
“Uninvited guests to our island could set things right with an apology.”
The elf went down on one knee and spread her arms, bowing. “The birds told us no dragons inhabited these caves,” she said, as the others helped Ghastmath to his feet. “We hoped our presence on the island would pass unnoticed.”
“What are you after?” AuRon asked, letting the dwarf rise. “Gold? The produce of the old Thortian mines? The jewels of Krakenoor, taken in the great sack?”
The men stirred and glanced at the elf. The dwarf, whose left arm hung funny, struck it hard against a pillar and sent it home with an audible click.
“Pogt,” the dwarf grunted. “The creature’s fouling the very air. I want out of this dragon-reek.”
“Little of the gold came here,” AuRon continued, licking the wou
nd in his breast clean. “The old Wizard Wyrmmaster wasn’t after fortune or glory. He spent much of what he stole buying allies or building those dragontowers. Dragons have nosed all through these caves, despite the evil memories of our bondage. Nothing like a mouthful of gold to keep the scale healthy, you know.”
“I told you it went to Juutfod and Gettel in her damn tower. She’s as rich as the ten kings, I’ll swear,” Ghastmath said, picking up his sword with a wary glance at AuRon.
“The sooner we’re back there safe, the better,” the dwarf grumbled. “This is a run-out mine.”
“Ghastmath, make yourself useful and put some of your wound-salve in the dragon’s injury.”
“Waste it on a dragon?” Ghastmath said, drawing himself up with a hint of a wince.
“Thank you, I’ll attend to my own,” AuRon said.
“If it’s poisoning you fear, Ghastmath will pour some on his tongue.”
Bother the wound.
“Now, if you want my permission to explore these caves and discover lost toilet sinks and old rag-weaving rooms and sidemeat closets and then leave the island in an unburned boat, you’ll have to pay a . . .” What would the Chartered Company dwarves call it again? “. . . A usage fee.”
“May we hear the fee before we accept?”
“Only a piece of information. I would hear a story from the dwarf, regarding a name he used.”
“Done,” Halfmoon said.
The dwarf crossed his arms and broke wind; the echo of it startled the raven off its perch. “That’s the only story a dragon will get from me. Short and nasty.”
AuRon yawned. “Which might describe the rest of your scrounging little lives, should some of the dragonelles learn of your presence. They still bear a grudge for scores of stolen eggs. And they like to hunt in packs. What sort of sport would you make, I wonder?”
Ghastmath shifted as though nerving himself for another strike.
“Raise that sword and I’ll take the arm that wields it,” AuRon warned.
The elf spun, seeming to work her body in two directions at once. Her leg moved up behind Ghastmath’s ankles as a stiff arm flashing the other way caught him across the chest.
