by E. E. Knight
“No,” the Copper said. “I think we should make a show of force. NiVom needs to know if he wants to fight for control of the dragon tower, it’ll cost him a hefty piece of his Aerial Host.”
They took turns leading the way south, flying in a line formation. The wind was blowing strong from that direction, bringing the storm, and while the fierceness of the air made it easy to stay aloft, covering horizons in a southward lap proved exhausting in the moist, windy air.
They worked out a system, suggested by the Copper, where the front flier simply concentrated on beating the air to death. The next in the slanted line enjoyed the slipstream and made sure of navigation, and the last watched for opposing fliers, from above, below, behind—the Aerial Host trained in coming out of the sun, or using cloud banks for a stealthy approach, or “grounding” briefly to let opponents fly past before rising to the attack.
The Copper could fly in the lead only briefly before he complained of pain in his injured wing. Wistala, stalwart as always, took over for him and forged ahead into the headwinds.
No matter what his role on the flight, AuRon found his mind wandering.
He could not decide if her long association with DharSii had changed his sister. He himself admired the dragon, but DharSii always preserved an air of isolation about him, as though he were perched at the peak of a mountain, no matter what the location and company. DharSii clearly cared for Wistala, but AuRon suspected that the dragon either had an agenda of his own or had suffered so many disappointments in life that he kept a reserve against further failure.
AuRon could sympathize. His youth had been shattered in a single, brutal day when the home cave was invaded by mercenaries seeking young dragons who could be broken to the saddle. Later, he’d lost NooMoahk, the ancient black dragon who’d served as a surrogate father. He’d poured out the whole of his life into his mate and their life on the Isle of Ice, but the glitter and society of the Dragon Empire had seduced her away more easily than he could have imagined.
Still, he sensed further calamities on the horizon, much like the coming thunderstorm. It pressed on him. The massacre at the Feast was just the start of something much worse for his kind. But whom could he get to listen?
Perhaps he was cracking up. Was he committing a spectacular, public suicide and bringing his siblings along for the trip?
No, Wistala truly wanted to avoid a second Fall of Silverhigh. She feared a human/dragon war that would probably destroy both races. His brother just wanted to spend his remaining years in peace with his mate. Passions of his abdication had cooled, the Empire had grown in security, and it was reasonable to assume that NiVom and his mate would no longer see AuRon as a threat to their power.
In the Copper’s mind, one of two things would happen as a result of his arriving in Quarryness.
What would not happen would be the dragons of the Aerial Host flying him back to NiVom and Imfamnia’s palace in Ghioz for their last, triumphant audience before packing him off in chains to whichever dungeon they’d selected for him to inhabit until they found the time and reason to murder him. They couldn’t force him to fly there, and if they couldn’t force him to fly they couldn’t force him to walk, either. If they chose to drag him, his body would fall to pieces before he arrived at the outskirts of Hypat.
What would happen? Either he would be allowed to proceed south to claim his mate, or he’d be killed.
Either might secure Nilrasha’s future. With him dead, she would no longer be a threat to NiVom and Imfamnia and they would leave her alone. They might be tempted to kill her, but her position and condition were known in the Empire. For NiVom and Imfamnia to kill a flightless dragonelle, and a widow at that, would incite opinion against them. Even the worst Tyrs evoked nostalgia when they were deceased and no longer part of the Lavadome’s political life.
If he was allowed to complete the march, word would pass through the Empire like flame. Those who disliked NiVom and Imfamnia would secretly support his march even as they watched and waited for a reaction. They might even work up the courage to join him. Their courtiers and lickvents in Ghioz might talk NiVom and Imfamnia into a rashness.
The chance to confront them in front of witnesses might even be worth his life. But would he spend his last breath cursing NiVom, or calling for Nilrasha?
The dragons of the Light Wing ringed the open common in front of what Wistala identified as the Hypatian hall. It wouldn’t have been hard to guess which building was the Hypatian hall even without her—it was both the tallest and broadest structure in the town.
They weren’t expecting him to bring other dragons, it seemed, for a ripple of activity ran through the waiting dragons. He counted twelve winged dragons—at least that he could see.
They alighted on the town common. Northerners were clustered in every doorway and window, watching events but ready to run to safety if flame began to fly.
The Copper, used to Hypatian grandeur, had a hard time believing he had landed in Hypatia. Even Juutfod, clinging to its steep incline beneath the cliffs on its zigzag streets and heavy wharves, seemed more built-up and cosmopolitan. This was a thatch-roofed village with a few big wooden halls and a single massive stone building. Were it not for the Hypatian hall, he would have mistaken it for the seat of some barbarian warlord.
DharSii took the role of interlocutor again and opened the negotiations. Wistala and AuRon flanked him. Hermethea watched the other direction.
“Well?” CuSarrath asked. “Have you come to face justice?”
“We come to keep dragon from killing dragon,” Wistala said, stepping forward and putting herself in the empty ground between the lines of dragons.
“None need die,” CuSarrath said. “I’m just ordered to bring the parole-breaking dragon who was adopted under the name RuGaard back to NiVom to face the Tyr’s justice. RuGaard or war against the might of the Empire, what will it be, dragons of the north?”
“I’d like to tell my side of the parole-breaking, as you call it,” the Copper said.
“He will do nothing of the kind,” CuSarrath said, stepping forward. “RuGaard, in the name of the Tyr and the Empire—glaack! ”
This last was in response to Wistala leaping upon him and encircling his neck with hers. Wistala was the strongest dragonelle he’d ever known, probably stronger than most dragons, and CuSarrath had been watching DharSii as he came forward.
“We are not going to harm him,” DharSii bellowed. “On my hatchlings’ sheltering eggs, I will keep this oath. Hear Tyr RuGaard out and judge for yourselves.”
The Copper waited to speak. He waited so long it became excruciating for him, but it only honed his audience’s attention. When a hundred heartbeats had passed, he took a deep breath—
And began to speak. He kept still, moving only his head, which he held high. AuRon grudgingly credited him with a certain craftiness. Were he to turn and walk about, his limping would either disgust or evoke pity in his audience and he wanted neither.
“I’ve come here to surrender myself to you. Not in the manner you believe, to be put under escort, muzzled like a convict, and marched into captivity where, if I’m lucky, I’ll be comfortable as I’m slowly fed poisoned meat.
“No, I’m surrendering myself to your judgment. While many of you were not yet fledged, I was presented with a dreadful choice by NiVom and Imfamnia: resign my title as Tyr and go into exile, with my mate held as hostage to my good behavior, or see her die under my gaze before having my own throat torn out.
“While my own life is just as precious to me as yours is to you, I was willing, as you are, to sacrifice it for my dragons if I thought by doing so I could gain safety and security for the next generation. It would be much tougher to condemn my mate to death through my pride and obstinacy, so I chose exile.
“Keeping my promise and hoping NiVom and Imfamnia would keep theirs—though once before the Jade Queen had betrayed dragonkind when she handed us over to the Dragonblade and his hag-riders—I went to my brother’s
remote island, only to find assassins waiting. While the words of our agreement were still echoing they broke their bond. I barely escaped with my life.
“Did they expect me to come south again after that, and meet my death immediately? Perhaps.”
The audience looked at each other uncomfortably, swishing their tails and shifting their feet. Were there orders to fall on him the instant he was within reach?
“Instead I went to the Sadda-Vale, and there waited and hoped. Hoped that a new Tyr would rise and right the wrong done to me and reunite me with my mate.
“This hasn’t happened. I’ve recently learned that in the intervening years, matters have become much, much worse. Perhaps to you it does not seem so terrible, for their madness has crept into the Empire slowly, like lichens, which you never see growing but when conditions are right can take over a cave in a matter of days. To me, when I heard how conditions in the Empire had changed, I could only believe that I’d been exposed to rumor and exaggeration.”
DharSii had helped him with his verbal presentation, teaching him to pace his speech and gradually let the speed and intensity grow.
“I intend to take my mate out, and as many dragons as I can,” the Copper finished.
This started a buzz from the assembled dragons. The Copper heard the words “Heavies” and “civil war” used.
Now, to take the offensive, the Copper thought.
“I can’t promise you anything, but that you won’t be bled and butchered for NiVom’s schemes.
“Yes, butchered. Didn’t you hear? The dead from the massacre at Ghioz were loaded onto a barge, taken up the Falnges, and dumped into the Star Tunnel. You’ve heard the Star Tunnel is off-limits, no doubt. Would you like to know why?”
He didn’t give them the chance to say no. “Someone is raising trolls in those tunnels. I don’t know how many of you have ever dealt with trolls, but they are the one creature moved by the Four Spirits with both the will and the ability to hunt dragons for food. They’re dreaded moonspawn, if you ask me, and now they’re twice as tough.
“What purpose have they? They’re very hard to command, so it’s not to serve as soldiers of the Empire. Mindless yet cunning murder is all they are capable of. If NiVom and Imfamnia could plan a murder of a score of feasting dragons, what else might they attempt? I’m convinced that one day they’re to be loosed into the Lavadome, when NiVom is finally done with the last of his enemies. When someone has something NiVom wants, they die. I would warn NoSohoth to keep clear of the Lavadome, for I’m sure NiVom wouldn’t mind having his wealth.”
“What do you want of us?” a dragon called.
“All I want is my mate. The dragonelle I pledged myself to.
The Empire has gone mad, and sooner or later NiVom and Imfamnia will decide she’s an inconvenience who must be destroyed. I must protect her, whatever the risk to myself. Were I killed, she might even be allowed to go free, as there’d be no further use for her.”
DharSii stifled an attempt by CuSarrath to speak. He probably wanted to mention his first mate, Halaflora, who allegedly died with fertilized eggs inside her. Lavadome rumor, based on court gossip, said they were another male’s, but he knew that to be false. Lavadome rumor also said that Nilrasha, his mate, had choked her, for she’d been found standing over the body with poor Halaflora’s blood on her sii. Halaflora had always been sickly and had difficulty eating. The Copper believed Nilrasha’s story that she’d choked on a chicken bone. He had to believe it, or many difficult years in the world had been wasted.
“I intend to rescue her from the rocky tower of her captivity and take her away, on foot, as she can no longer fly any more than I can see out of this eye.”
Wistala looked at the ground at that, he noticed.
The Copper walked up and down the line of the Aerial Host, as he had seen their commanders do before battle. “Then I will depart the Empire, never to return, at least while it exists in this fashion, literally bleeding dragons to death for a single powerful dragon’s purpose. I will take as many dragons as wish to come with me. Whether I will be your Tyr or not in our new home, that’s for you to decide. I don’t particularly want the burdens—I’d much rather act as an occasional adviser to a younger, more vigorous dragon, or a veteran of many lands and many battles such as DharSii.”
That perked them up. Some looked at DharSii with new interest.
“Now, who will join me on this march? I can guarantee, nothing like it has ever happened in the history of dragons. We will go south, through the heart of the Hypatian Empire, seeking neither enmity nor succor, until we stand at the base of the rocky tower that keeps my mate from me. I do not expect the rightness of my cause to shield me, but it will strengthen me to face whatever the fates have in store for us. If I find that they have murdered Nilrasha, a flightless dragon, alone in a remote fastness, held without communication or congress, I will attempt to avenge her. I will not ask any of you to join me for that.
“One final journey, into the Empire and then back out again. We will proclaim, again and again, that we seek nothing but my mate and then the freedom to leave unmolested. Which of you will come with me and DharSii?”
They’re about to jump, AuRon thought to Wistala. They’ll all jump one way or another. Either with us, or on us.
He wished his brother had given him some warning of the nature of the speech. Wistala hadn’t known, either; she’d jumped when the Copper said he was accompanying him on his march.
As he listened, he was shocked to see Varatheela in the group of listeners. She looked well, strong and supple and in condition, with Wistala’s wingspan and his own mother’s long neck and tail.
AuRon did his best to ignore his daughter, tempted as he was to admire her. She hadn’t much cared for him since she’d breathed her first fire and he knew it. If he stared at her, she would never move, or worse, would say something against the Copper’s speech.
“I’ll come with you, my Tyr,” a thin golden dragon said.
That was the first. A malcontent, a dragon who bore a grudge against his fellows.... It proved nothing. It was the second that counted. If two would join the Copper, he might have the rest jumping in.
“You fools! You’ll burn!” CuSarrath snarled.
“All the better,” said the haggard gold dragon who was the first to join the Copper. “Trolls won’t be able to eat us.”
In the end, a majority of the Lights joined their old Tyr. They ended up with seven, all of whom had memories of his time as Tyr. AuRon suspected they’d been moved to sympathy. He felt them go over to his brother when his brother said that the rightness of his cause would not shield him, but it would strengthen him. He wondered just how much of that speech was DharSii and what belonged to his brother. DharSii certainly looked satisfied with the result.
Chapter 14
NiVom startled at the step of the messenger-flier. His firebladder ached as though it had been stabbed, and it took a moment for it to calm down. Anxiety always gave him a sour bladder. The messenger had been the wrong color for his mood. For just a moment, RuGaard stood in front of him. Then he realized it was a gray, serving as messenger for the Light Wing of the Aerial Host. He was standing in their expansive quarters in front of a copper sheet etched with ancient Elvish characters. Imfamnia had found it somewhere among the Red Queen’s possessions years ago and saved it from being shredded and devoured. He really should make a study of Elvish someday. There was a good deal of it lying about in the Red Queen’s old archives and some of it might be very interesting reading. It would be nice to know the words ringing his face every time he looked at it. For all he knew, it was the Red Queen’s final curse on those who would steal her palace.
The Red Queen and Imfamnia shared a fault: vanity.
“My Tyr,” the messenger said, bowing.
No briskness to the bow, no excitement to the step. It must be bad news. Messengers always crackled with energy when delivering good news, even when exhausted after a long flight.
“No, my Tyr. Thank you, my Tyr,” the messenger said.
“Out with it, then.”
“CuSarrath found the former Tyr. He was with his brother, sister, and that renegade DharSii.”
“I take it CuSarrath didn’t bag the lot.”
“No, my Tyr. In fact—”
“Well, he’s a slippery fellow, the old Tyr. We fought together, back when a campaign in the Upper World was a rarity. With Ghioz, over a nothing dustbowl of an uphold. We won, though.”
“Of course you did, my Tyr. But if you don’t mind me saying, you’re mistaken. He didn’t get away. Not exactly. He’s marching south.”
“Into Hypatia? He and what army?”
“That’s just it, my Tyr. Ours. Some of the Lights went over to him.”
CuSarrath! Strong of wing but weak of brain! He should never have allowed the Light Wing its own headquarters; it should have remained attached to the rest of the Host. He’d have the Grand Commander’s head for this—
Back to the matter at hand, NiVom. Matter at hand. He struggled to return his face to the usual calm interest he displayed when dealing with messengers.
“Dare I ask if there’s more?”
“CuSarrath asks for more dragons. All of the Aerial Host, gathered at Hypat. He sends that it is urgent, but the rebels are traveling on foot, so there is time.”
On foot? Why under the stars would they do that? A dragon was ten times as fast in the air. It made no sense.
“Been in the air long, gray?”
“Three days getting here, my Tyr.”
“Very well. You’re relieved. Recover for a day, and report back for duty to the ready post. Before you go, send up a fresh messenger. The fastest they have available.”
