by E. E. Knight
No sign of Naf, but much heraldry in the form of banners of various colors and designs and many more horses than the stables could hold.
They neither took alarm—even the reasonable precaution of hiding their horses—or attempted to signal him. He had no desire for converse. They might order him out of Ghioz or try to put a poisoned arrow in his eye as they talked.
Naf had spoken, more than once, of his dreams of freeing his people from the Ghioz. AuRon had hoped against hope that he held his pass still, so he could at least look at his homeland, but saw no sign of him. He certainly would have come out and signaled if he’d been there.
AuRon descended the eastern side of the mountains into Naf’s homeland, the province of Dairuss, and circled over the City of the Golden Dome, his joints aching at the long day flying at high altitude, and looked down on the seat of the Ghioz government in the north. The city had swelled, it seemed, absorbing the population that had fled the wars on the other side of the mountains. He had just reconciled himself to an end of flying for the day when he caught a flash of scale off to the east.
That dot against a cloud was a dragon, no doubt. Too much neck and tail for anything else.
AuRon, thanks to his scaleless skin, could fly like an arrow when he chose, and he chose to intercept the unknown dragon, who seemed to be following the river bordering Dairuss north.
The dragon moved slowly, either exhausted or burdened. At first he turned a little toward AuRon as though interested in speeding the encounter.
With the day ending, AuRon had the slight advantage over the stranger of having the sun at his back. He could see that the unknown dragon was a red, with dark stripes descending his scales. Odd color scheme. His own skin had dark stripes too.
Suddenly the dragon dove. As he turned, AuRon saw he bore some sort of harness, a smaller, simpler version of his own. If he had a rider it was a fat, well-wrapped one hugging saddle and scale with all four limbs.
The stranger turned belly-up and his harness fell away, twisting as it dropped to the trees below. It was no rider after all, but some sort of cargo-saddle such as mules and packhorses wore. For a moment AuRon dipped and turned to follow the faster-moving object—a natural instinct but one Red Stripe used to advantage. Released of his burden, he fought for altitude, and AuRon found that Red Stripe had the sun painfully behind him and advantage of wind and altitude.
“I’ve no wish to fight,” AuRon bellowed.
“. . . stay . . . or . . . below me,” the stranger called back, keeping his advantage as AuRon rose.
AuRon almost tried outclimbing the strange dragon to regain dominance in the encounter, but the cautious half of his brain took over and had him glide inoffensively back toward the dropped pack. Why reveal to the stranger just how fast he could climb?
“Might we land and talk?” AuRon called, and flew closer, repeating the offer.
“You first,” Red Stripe called back.
AuRon swooped down, tilting his body first right and then left, a quick way to drop but still have plenty of momentum in case you needed to fly off to avoid an attack. Plus it allowed him to keep an eye on the stranger.
Red Stripe imitated him and they found a wild brambly patch in the woods. There were thick thorns here and AuRon guessed it flooded in the spring, judging from the grasses and reeds. But now it was dry.
The stranger neatly retrieved his pack from where close-packed trees had caught it, with some loss of branches. It must be a heavy burden. Nevertheless Red Stripe extracted it with a mad flap of a hover and a dip of his tail.
A neat trick. AuRon didn’t want to be impressed. Every instinct told him to bristle and assert himself in the presence of a strange male, but he couldn’t help the impulse to admire such a deft move.
AuRon flattened some of the thorn bushes about. There were game trails crisscrossing this clearing. Whatever lived here must have a thick hide.
Red Stripe dropped his pack near them in the tangle of brambles and set down. He dug about behind his griff and then approached with whatever it was held in his right mouth. The gesture drew attention to the fact that he wore a gold earring. The decoration unsettled AuRon. It reminded him too much of the fixtures for lines on the wizard’s trained dragons.
“I am AuRon of the Isle of Ice,” AuRon said, taking the stranger’s part in greeting, since he’d moved to intercept Red Stripe. His store of dragon etiquette was about as deep as a puddle. He dipped his head.
“I am DharSii of Sadda-Vale,” the stranger said. If his nose dipped, it only just moved.
AuRon wondered at the name. It was “Quick-claw” in Drakine, but he’d never heard of dragons named for objects or their alleged attributes. It struck him as odd.
This DharSii stared at the old hatchling egg horn still perched between his nostrils for a moment, as if making sure of his eyes. Dragons usually lost their egg horn soon after hatching, but AuRon had fought the itch to rub it off and kept his, and it had saved his life in the hatching combat with his brothers.
Too small to be a weapon anymore, its only use of late was for aiming small, precise globs of fire for the amusement of his hatchlings.
“I am sorry if I alarmed you with my approach,” AuRon ventured. DharSii had impressive size, rugged scale, a keen, watchful eye, and healthy horns projecting from his crest, rather more outward and up than most dragons, almost in the manner of an ox. AuRon wouldn’t care to fight him.
“Care for some oliban to ease the words?” DharSii asked, extracting the tube from his mouth. He reared up and fiddled with a cylinder, put some quartz-like granules in his sii, and held them out to AuRon.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a distillate of rare woods to the south with a most relaxing aroma. The smell is more intense in liquid form, but it stores better as a crystal, even if the effect is diminished. The aroma is exceedingly pleasing, if you’ve never experienced it.”
The stranger had a fanciful way of speaking. AuRon wondered what hid behind the camouflage of words.
The stranger pinched some of his aromatic treasure into a nostril, grinding it between his claws. He gave a soft, satisfied snort.
“That rather washes the fatigues of the day away,” DharSii said. “Are you sure you won’t have some? Don’t worry, it’s merely a pleasant sensation. It doesn’t intoxicate like a shaggy mushroom or wishweed.”
AuRon wondered if it was some trick.
“No, thank you.”
DharSii put his cylinder away. “I’ve heard of you. A dragon named Shadowcatch told me about the rising against the men who were hatching dragons. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“He should have dragonelles do most of the fighting,” AuRon said, uncomfortable as always at the thought of people discussing him. “What is the Sadda-Vale?”
“The home of some distant cousins of mine. A remote spot in the north, east of the Red Mountains—you do know the Red Mountains?”
“You’ll fight a cold wind,” AuRon said.
“I’ve fought worse. I have just completed a war for the Ghioz.”
“The Ghioz pay well? My island is poor in metal, you see.”
“I thought so, once. But the problem with selling out tooth, wing, and scale is that they temporarily belong to another. I’m determined that from now on if I must fight, I shall have the choosing of my opponent.”
“You wouldn’t know if a dragon named Wistala was also hired at some time?”
His counterpart stiffened as though AuRon had snapped at him.
“Wistala?”
His usual loquacity seemed to have fled.
“She sometimes goes by Tala,” AuRon said. Something about the red’s manner drove AuRon to caution; he decided the less he revealed, the better for all. This DharSii must not know they were brother and sister or he would have said so. “She’s an old ally of mine, from before the freeing of the dragon-isle. . . . I believe she long thought I was dead.”
“I have very bad news for you. She fell in battl
e. But a moon cycle ago.”
AuRon’s heart felt as though it had dropped out of his chest and lay pulsing on the thorns below.
“I fear . . .” DharSii began. “I fear the demen killed her. She fell down a chasm. I went down after her.” He raised his wing, and AuRon saw torn scale, fresh-healed wounds still weeping, and blackened marks that might have been burns.
AuRon tried to find words.
Red Stripe read his mood. “I can’t offer you any hope beyond saying I saw no body. I do not know absolutely that she is dead. I left her a message saying that she is to come to the Sadda-Vale at once if she ever gets out of that hole. Circumstances in the form of a counterattack by blighters forced me to quit the location.”
AuRon tried to imagine what another dragon might say. “I am sad to hear that. Our hunts together are one of my happiest memories. She was a clever dragonelle,” AuRon said.
“You admired that too, did you? Did she consider you for—”
“Oh, there wasn’t a thought of mating,” AuRon said.
“Why? The lack of scale? She was of generous mind. I doubt she would have refused you on that account. She would adapt.”
The use of Father’s maxim—that he must adapt to new circumstances—rather shocked him. Had this DharSii been close to Wistala? Why wouldn’t he say if they were mated? He had worn the expression of one who had lost a mate ever since her name had arisen.
“I—I’m mated already,” AuRon said. This DharSii had a quick mind, and it would occur to him that just because he was mated now, it didn’t mean that he had always been besung. But he showed no sign of it.
“I am happy to hear it. Is there a clutch?”
“Our first, just over their first year.”
He tore up ground with one sii as he spoke. “My compliments. Were it not such a long flight to the Sadda-Vale, I would offer you hospitality with my relations. They dote on stories of hatchlings.”
“I could use an introduction in Ghioz. I’d like a chance at earning a harness of coin myself. As I said, our island is poor in metals, and we have hatchlings.”
For the first time since Wistala’s name had come up, DharSii looked at him, close and thoughtful.
“This isn’t—this isn’t another infiltration.”
“What can you mean?”
DharSii’s griff didn’t exactly rattle, but they lowered visibly. “As I told you, I heard your story from Shadowcatch. The Red Queen makes war when she must, but she’s no mad-dog. Ghioz is the coming hominid power—anyone can see that—and I enjoy its favor. I wouldn’t want anything to upset my position.”
“I can leave you out of it. Just tell me where I may find her, and I’ll thank you for news of my . . . my friend.”
“It will cost me but half a moon. I feel as though I owe you something for the sad news I bear. The winds to the north will be that much fiercer, but I’ve come through worse storms.”
“Thank you.”
“I warn you, she can smell out deception.”
“I thank you for the warning, but it’s not necessary.”
“You’ll lay your throat on that?”
AuRon wondered at the grim-sounding phrase. Well, he certainly intended no harm to the Queen of the Ghioz. “If that will set your mind at ease, yes, I lay my throat on it.”
“Let us rest before turning back south,” DharSii said. “I’ve been sleeping on sandbars, but this tangle would serve to guard us. Shall we take turns keeping an eye open?”
AuRon turned a circle, like a wolf, and settled down. “I will stay up first, while I consider how best to mourn my friend.”
“Know that she was resolute to the end.” Then more quietly: “Were that she hadn’t been!”
DharSii woke him before dawn and they hunted the game-trails. They found some scab-hided boar, and by each taking an end of a game-trail through the thickets, managed to burn one of the fattest, though their trap didn’t work as well as they would have liked, for the others shot off grunting through the roots. But dragon-roast pork made a fine breakfast, seasoned by a rosy smoke from the thorns.
The successful hunt mated his admiration of the dragon with enjoyment of the time spent in his company. He could be talkative when asked but preferred silent contemplation, division, and digestion of their meal. A word or two on the merits of game roasted in skin against gutting and tenderizing in a tree for a day or two satisfied both.
They halted once on the flight south, and AuRon prodded DharSii for details of the battle that cost him Wistala. As he relayed details, an awful suspicion grew—mountains to the southeast, a great cave, an old ruin, blighters . . .
It sounded as though the Queen of the Ghioz had made war on the blighters he’d once more or less presided over as an ally. But why had the Queen attacked the old ruins? Unless broken pottery and dust had suddenly become valuable, he couldn’t see the reason. A murder-raid would be better directed at the blighter villages on the southern slopes of the mountains there. For NooMoahk’s library? For that queer crystal the blighters worshiped?
He wondered how Wistala had fallen in with mercenary dragons, murdering blighters he knew to be about as peaceable as any hominids he’d met in all his travels. Wistala, seeking death and pillage? Of course, he’d changed much in coming to maturity. Perhaps she had also, and not for the better.
AuRon saw ships scattered along the river, and camps full of soldiers.
“Is there a war?” he asked, flying over men marching back and forth in an empty paddock and archers practicing on scarecrows.
“Soon,” DharSii said.
“She doesn’t need dragons for war?”
“Oh, she does. It’s the dragon who is tired of war in this case.”
They came to fertile lands and fields full of livestock. DharSii pointed out brickworks kilns and limestone quarries, docks and warehouses, roads, bridges, and neat little towns with wide streets. Each had a temple with a golden dome somewhere near the center; some domes were great, some, at quiet little crossroads, no bigger than a dragon egg.
AuRon asked about the domes.
“That’s the seat of power for the local titleor.”
“Titleor?” AuRon shouted back over the wind, not sure he had heard what was obviously a hominid term correctly.
“That’s the Ghioz word. It translates into Parl as overking, but that’s a little clumsy for me. I find it easier to pronounce Ghioz.”
“So they’re a kind of miniature king?”
“Oh, it confuses even me. Here, drift close for a moment. The Queen grants or sells titles, say to run a warehouse or unload ships or even govern a province, and in return the hominids pay a title-tithe. Those that run their affairs profitably get the chance to buy more titles. Titles are ranked by the coin used to pay—brass, silver, and gold. If you’re the owner of one or more golden titles you’re a very important Ghi man indeed. Those titleor that lose money so as not to pay the title-tithe, get their titles revoked. It’s possible for one successful dwarf, let’s say, to have a score or more titles. It gets horribly complex, especially since provincial governors get a chance to grant titles in their own province in the name of the Queen, sharing the proceeds with her. That’s why the Ghioz grow so. They’re always looking to start up a new province.”
How did hominids find time to make so many squalling whelps when they had to cope with such complexity every day? Strange schemes of the two-legged!
They turned off the river and followed a smaller branch into the mountains. AuRon guessed their destination from far off. He could see the cuts and shapes to one spur of mountain, flung far out and divided into claws, like a two-digit saa.
On the way there they encountered giant winged avians. AuRon recognized them. He’d seen a few, far off and high up, in his explorations of the southern jungles during his years as dragon-friend to the blighters of the Bissonian Scarps.
“Roc-riders,” DharSii said. “The Queen’s latest obsession. She’s breeding them as fast as she can. She learne
d some trick of taming them just out of the egg.”
AuRon suspected he knew the trick, but he said nothing.
Three avians, with unnatural bumps of fur-swaddled men on their backs, flew close. Their saddles and reins seemed light compared to those AuRon was all too well acquainted with from the wizard’s riders. As to weapons, they looked like dwarvish crossbows.
“The threat’s not the man,” DharSii said. “It’s those beaks and talons. They can outclimb and outturn a dragon.”
“And a dive?” AuRon called.
DharSii winked. “Shhhh.”
The riders were satisfied with a brief look at DharSii. They took their mounts higher, content to observe.
They approached the ending of a long-running stretch of the Red Mountains. The ridge was rather odd, rocky and sheer-sided, with grass at the top like a green rug running down from the tree line. Woods of trees that looked amazingly tall stood in a misty valley, with foggy clouds in two layers rendering the landscape gray and soft.
“That’s the Queen’s Wood, all around that spur,” DharSii said. “The mightiest trees you’ve ever seen, tall cylinders of pine longer than dragons. I daresay older, too.”
AuRon marked a prominence at the end of the mountain, before it divided into three steep fells.
“That’s a mountain centuries in the making. It’s an old place, terribly old. Supposedly there was a war fought between elves and dwarves over it long ago. It was supposed to depict that dwarf-legend Dwar with his face coming out of a tree, some legend of theirs. Or maybe the tree is the elves’ doing, to make it look like his head is hanging from the branches—though I don’t quite believe it because the head looks out of proportion. Then Anklamere took possession and decided it should be him, and off comes much of the beard—you can see they’ve made sort of a labyrinth below with bits of it—and the brow was reshaped to his noble form. Now, with the Red Queen’s rule, they’re reshaping it again to make it more feminine.”
“Where does the Queen live?”
“That terrace built into the back of the sculpted knob. It doesn’t look that impressive, but it’s rich inside. There’s a long path up the green spine of the ridge to her personal temple, and you can see her sacred flocks in their pens. We’ll make for the path. There’s a sort of amphitheater where she holds audiences. I watched one and she said very little, just swapped her masks around as she made judgments.”
