by E. E. Knight
The Copper didn’t have a chance to respond. With a crash that must have been heard in the Lavadome, one of the boulders fell into the hole, revealing the entrance to a larger cave.
The scouts consulted with each other, and a human who was missing his right hand—the Copper remembered he was named Fyrebin; he’d stood out during the introductions because of the lost hand—defied the others and refused to enter first.
“I thought I heard a voice,” the old barbarian said.
Shadowcatch pushed up to the entrance to the cave and the Copper followed. He sensed a vast open space on the other side of the phony fall. “Me and the Blind Ripper will go forward. Tunnelbreakers. It’s tough duty, but someone has to do it.”
“I’ll come along,” the Copper said to Shadowcatch. “I’ll take your place. You manage things with the rest. You know them. They’ve never fought with me.”
Shadowcatch ground his teeth in thought. “I never questioned you before, but now I must, my Tyr. What do you have in mind?”
“I know the sounds and smells of dwarfs. I’m also a good deal smaller than you. If the Blind Ripper starts thrashing about, I can get out of his way. If things go disastrously for us, you can jam your body in this tunnel and delay until the rest find some defensive ground—I’d suggest the other side of the water-wash.”
“What do you think?” Shadowcatch asked, tapping the Blind Ripper.
The blinded dragon just shrugged. His dry sockets were disturbing. He tended to draw his lips back from his teeth and then cover them again in a nervous habit, or perhaps it was due to the injury that had robbed him of his eyes.
A grinding noise behind. This time it wasn’t Shadowcatch’s teeth.
It was a stone, as big as a roof and thick as winter ice on a shallow pond. It began to roll down a smoothed track. His gaze anticipated its track—it would strike the end of its track just beyond the opening to the tunnel, fitting into its position as neatly as a dragon’s griff behind the jawline.
It pressed down as if the mountain above added to its bulk. He could only slow it, not stop it.
He found the strength for a moment.
“Dwarfs all around,” the Blind Ripper said, backing up.
“Out, back to the tunnel,” he grunted, slapping at the gap with his tail so the Blind Ripper could find it.
“Out! Out! Out! ” he called to the Blind Ripper.
He saw the blind dragon’s tail vanish. Shadowcatch stuck his head in, saw the rolling stone with the Copper pressing the length of his body against it, scrabbling with his arms.
“Run for your lives. I’m done for,” the Copper called.
He’d taken one too many chances. Sooner or later, the luck ran out, or fate settled on you. Exhausted, he let the stone slip at last into the socket.
He turned around, his back to the gigantic wheel of a door.
A mass of dwarfs, fifty or more, stood with axes held before them. The closest was the height and width of a baby troll.
“What’ll we do, sir? Eat him raw or smoke him over his own flame?” one of them asked the frontmost dwarf.
Chapter 6
It was easy enough for AuRon to sneak into the great cave of Old Uldam. He’d lived there throughout much of his adolescence and early adulthood as sort of a tribal mascot for the blighters, who thrived thickly on the more hospitable south slopes of the mountains.
He knew each ruin in the old cave, once the principal city of the blighters during their glory days of dominance. Those ancient blighter kings had carved a city out of living rock, taking advantage of an arresting geographic feature, a sort of overhang in the mountain that created a great cave-mouth beneath. Through years of patient excavation, they’d enlarged the cave, keeping it supported by wide columns like teeth in a vast mouth, fangs bared to their enemies on the coasts of the Sunstruck Sea.
Wistala had lived here as well. Then his daughter became the Protector, saving it from a war of conquest from the Dragon Empire. His family’s fate seemed bound to the place.
It had been a long, frustrating journey to his old home. He’d probably delayed longer than he should have, but he wanted to make sure that the dragon bodies hadn’t been quietly burned in some thick patch of woods or dragged into a swamp and covered with vines. So he investigated every trail, every burned patch of lightning-struck wood, and plunged into more than one marshy dogleg off the river to feel around for dragon bones.
He met the barges at last, making their careful way back down the river, loaded with thick trunks of wood from the ever-shifting logging camps. The barges were making poor progress, with the river falling as summer wore on; sometimes they had to dam the river to put enough water under their flat-bottoms to float. He recognized them by their low timbers—they were probably chosen as the easiest vessels from which to roll a dead body over the side.
He found two sets of promising signs. One was a number of trails and drag-marks leading to Old Uldam, the other a well-trod trail to the logging camp that showed signs of heavy burdens being moved through the brush.
The logging camp trail could be explained by timber. The other one, headed east to the mountains of Old Uldam, disappeared at the first ridge. Perhaps some blighter cattle had been driven down to the riverside, tribute to the Empire.
He paused at that ridge and looked at the familiar spine of the mountains of Old Uldam. Birds, frightened into silence by his arrival, started their chirping again as he pondered.
Why this mad concern about dragon bodies? The dragons had been killed because they were political enemies of NiVom and Imfamnia, or simply useless mouths. Their deaths would bring on the fury needed to take a war to the princedoms of the Sunstruck Sea.
But if that was the case, why go to all the bother with the bodies? No, there must be something deeper going on. If the deaths were simply to inflame their relatives, a fierce oration by NiVom as the heap of bodies burned behind him would serve him better. Flames and memorial words could put fire in hearts weary of battle. There must be some other reason. Was something about the wounds revealing? So many dragons killed, so quickly. The only thing he’d ever seen slay dragons like that was the poison from a venomer.
His brother had told him that venomers were considered so deadly, the Lavadome once put them to death. In later years, they underwent a delicate operation to the roof of their mouth that rendered them harmless, though each clan was thought to hide one or two in reserve for emergencies, in case another civil war broke out.
With what little he knew of Imfamnia, anything was possible. His brother said she was a silly, simple dragon. He had his doubts after hearing her speak to Wistala. But then, being a clever conversationalist to extract a little gossip and executing a murder for profit were hatchlings and venerables away from each other. But then, she may have just sold the bodies for a few extra gems to embed in her fringe. That would explain much. If so, and he could get the evidence of it, he could bring down NiVom and his Jade Queen both.
Whenever he wondered how deeply Natasatch was involved in Imfamnia’s plots, he pushed the thoughts from his mind.
Another thought rose, unbidden. If NiVom and Imfamnia fell, Natasatch might fall with them. Clearly she was thought to be in Imfamnia’s close coterie and the behavior of the other dragons at the feast proved it. She’d been protected during the bloodbath by her closeness to Imfamnia. Outraged families and clans hungry for vengeance might not be willing to listen to the finer points of knowledge and action in determining guilt.
No, if he did learn anything, he would have to put Natasatch quietly in hiding before acting.
The woods on the east bank of the river proved empty of everything save game and a few blighter hunting camps. He stopped at each and asked if they’d seen any dragons, living or dead, and after they got over their startle at being addressed in their own tongue they told him that the only dragons they knew of were the pair in the ruin, their Mountain King and the Recluse.
Istach wouldn’t be called Mountain King by ev
en the most ignorant blighter, so his daughter must be the Recluse.
Istach had always been an odd dragonelle. Natasatch had once believed that she was a nest-clinger, a dragon who would stick close to home and never venture into the wide world. His mate had been partly right—she’d planted herself in Old Uldam.
After a careful examination of the southern slopes of the Bissonian Scarpes, the blighter-filled mountains that were once the heart of their empire at its height, he entered the great cave of Old Uldam. He sought out his daughter in his old refuge, NooMoahk’s cave.
He found her in the library. It was smaller than he remembered it, though whether this was due to his being used to the grandeur of Scabia’s delvings in the Sadda-Vale, his having grown, or the library being emptied he couldn’t decide.
Istach seemed all at once pleased, relieved, and concerned to see him, making her look like a dragonelle with ants digging under her scales.
“I’m not the Protector anymore, Father,” she said, fidgeting. “NiVom and his mate didn’t think I was managing. So they sent out FuPozat—the blighters call him Fusspot. He’s a copper-colored dragon with an off-balance horn on his crest. Fusspot made a mess of things by dividing each herd in two, half for the Empire, the other half for the tribe, and pretty soon the blighters’ herds started suffering from mysterious maladies, with a good half of them dropping dead. Actually they were hiding them in the jungle, where they couldn’t be easily observed from the air. I did my best to smooth things over, and the region’s productive again, but only just. There’s been some raiding. Fusspot’s in a state of constant panic that more blighters will turn outlaw and Old Uldam will revolt and give NiVom an excuse to reduce it to ashes.”
AuRon thought this curious. His brother claimed NiVom was one of the most intelligent dragons he’d ever met. Of course, intelligence and sense weren’t always allies. “NiVom would rather have no cattle than a few?”
“I was never a satisfactory Protector,” she said. “I let the blighters be. Tyr NiVom wishes tribute—cattle, metals, grains, thralls.... We can offer some cattle and sheep. These mountains have copper and silver, though it would take dwarfs for Old Uldam to be truly rich in them. As for grains, the blighters are not great farmers. They ‘sow wild’ so their herds may graze and they can gather in a pinch. Thralls? Blighters will happily headhunt, but all the tribes of these mountains are only too happy to ally under the dragon banner. The men of the princedoms to the south are on the other side of a trackless jungle, and the nomads to the north in the lands of the Ironriders have a desert lying between, the waste of Anklemere. Only to the west do they have neighbors, and that’s the Empire. So no thralls from Old Uldam, except for a few criminals and troublemakers the chieftains wish to be rid of. Fusspot’s happy to oblige.”
“Do you get along with him?”
“No, not at all. He seems to think that just because we’re male and female, out here in the middle of what he calls nowhere, we should mate. I don’t mean hatchlings and all that, just mating for the voluptuousness of it. ‘Informal mating,’ he calls it. Even if I had never heard one word out of his mouth, I wouldn’t find him particularly attractive, but now that I know what little there is of his mind, I keep as far away as I can. Not that he doesn’t come sniffing about down here every few weeks despite me snapping at his snout.”
“Why would they send such a dragon out here as Protector?”
“Maybe NiVom owes him a favor. Still, he’s a terrible dragon for a Protector of a border province. He’s prickly and he overreacts to everything. He burned a trade caravan in the desert, thinking it was an invading force, and he has his blighters kill the white-jacket men of the Sunstruck Sea when they catch them in the southern jungle, even if they’re just taking wood and bamboo.”
NiVom seemed determined to start a war with the princedoms. Maybe this prickly FuPozat would put the flame of his personality to the tinder of chafing between the blighters and the men of the princedoms.
Istach had vast wooden racks where she salted, herbed, and dried various fruits, vegetables, and meats. She also had a wall full of brining barrels. Evidently she didn’t like leaving the library, and was unwilling to depend on the blighters for her food. They reclined to a meal of her smoked pork-skins and dragon-flame-braised beef tongue, accompanied by dried apple slices.
“The fate of dragons and the fate of the Empire are tangled. Hard to say whether this is a death grip or an embrace.”
“I know which way my brother would argue.”
“We could just flee, you know.”
“Become wild dragons? I’m told that’s been happening more lately. Dragons just disappear, usually mated pairs ready for their eggs. That’s when the instinct is strongest.
“I’ve been following a barge—several barges. Loaded with the corpses of dragons. I believe they were headed here.”
“I don’t know anything about that, Father. But then, I rarely hear anything down here. Even the blighters don’t bother to visit the cave much, with their idol gone.”
“Where did it go?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is that these stones, their flicker faded as the days passed.”
AuRon looked into the stones. He’d examined them, at leisure, when he lived in the cave. Sometimes he’d seen flashes of himself looking at the stone—not as a mirror would show but from another angle.
He thought he saw swirling colors now. Imagination?
He stared deeper. A figure moved in the stone—two-legged, a hominid, not draconic. It played in the stone like a shadow caught on the surface of a rippling pool. The figure faded and he saw a swirl of orange and red light, like slow-moving flame.
The Lavadome.
Were these crystals still drawing some kind of power from the old statue they’d so long accompanied? He wished he’d listened more to Wistala and DharSii. They were both interested in the crystal the Red Queen had given him when he served as her messenger to the Lavadome. They questioned him closely and he answered honestly, and afterward asked them what they were looking for.
The Lavadome, the eyepiece, the statue—they’re all connected, DharSii had said. If we could assemble all the pieces, I wouldn’t wonder that we’d experience a revelation.
Interesting, but he had to return to the matter at hand.
The dragon bodies weren’t just dumped in the river. The question nagged—why would they transport them so far? There was nothing between here and the Empire save a good deal of rough terrain. Perhaps on the journey they stripped off the flesh, tanned the hides, and boiled the bones. He’d heard that hominid sorcerers and priests considered dragon bones powerful, as either ingredients or icons. Perhaps he was on a fool’s errand after all.
No, it wasn’t like sailors to do anything but move cargo. Their vessels were chronically short of hands, and disassembling a dragon would be an enormous task. Would anyone even trust them with the work? He’d been on ships and barges before. They must have simply delivered their cargo to some station or other. There were logging camps, a defunct mine....
They could hide dragon bodies in a mine, he supposed. Salt might even preserve the bodies, retaining the value of the flesh, though he knew of no salt mine. When he’d lived here the blighters had just wrung salt from a clay pit where the mountainside met the jungle.
“There is a mine about somewhere,” AuRon said. “I remember Wistala mentioning it.”
“Yes, I think it was an old prospecting camp of the Ghioz, though the blighters maintained they were just working the mine so near the blighter mountains in the hope of provoking a war. It’s this side of the river, not far off it.”
He knew the ridgeline with the mine Istach spoke of once she described the topography in detail. He’d often hunted in those hills and woods when feeding NooMoahk and after he “inherited” NooMoahk’s old cave.
So with a half-full belly—it didn’t do to explore on too full a stomach, since digestion slowed the blood—he thanked his daughter and set out. He ke
pt to the ground when he left the cave, taking dusty paths through the old ruins where once he’d played hide-and-seek with Hieba, just in case the new Protector was out and up early. According to Istach he ate hearty meals during the night and slept through the mornings, but AuRon had a lifetime of cautious habits spent guarding his thin skin.
The summer sun was hot. AuRon had forgotten how fierce it was in these mountains after the solstice. He gained altitude and found some cool air.
Ah, there was the lake, and the ridge. The mine must be between—
Movement behind caught his eye. A copper dragon was coming fast on his tailline. For a moment, AuRon thought it was his brother—they were of similar size and color.
AuRon executed a rising half loop to gain altitude on the Protector and face him.
“I’m neither assassin nor thief,” AuRon called. “I intend no harm to you or what’s yours.”
“Think you’ll take my title away, do you?” the copper dragon, who could only be FuPozat, bellowed. “I paid good coin, my whole inheritance, and no interloper, however beloved of the blighters, is going to take it away.” This speech left him panting and he banked to come at AuRon from the side.
The fool had missed his chance. If he’d been careful, he could have followed AuRon on a line between him and the sun and dove out of the light. Evidently he was a dragon not much used to hunting or fighting.
“What makes you think I’m claiming your title?”
“Word came in the predawn. Their old totem-dragon had returned to claim his own. Stooped and gray old blighters tell stories from their childhood of your days here, how you ate of their cattle only at festivals, and say that peace and plenty are returning with you! They’re feasting in their huts in your name!”
Foolish blighters. Well, it was Fusspot’s own fault. If he was mismanaging the mountains so much that the blighters were slaughtering fat calves in hope of AuRon’s return, perhaps Fusspot should levy a few less head in the name of the Empire.
