Legacy of Steel

by Mary H. Herbert

  Annoyed with her thoughts and unanswered questions, Sara turned around and went back into the inn. She rented a tiny room, purchased some bread and wine, and retreated to the solitude of her thoughts.

  For the remainder of the afternoon, she lay on the bed, listening to the wind roar around the eaves and the rain pound on the roof. She thought for a long time about loss and grief and pain and the comfort of companionship.

  The gods were gone; there was nothing to do about that. Their help and succor, their guidance through the ages, had passed on, leaving their children behind. The only thing Sara firmly believed anymore was that if those children were going to survive on their own and make anything of their world, they would have to rely on each other, no matter who those children happened to be. She sighed. And if that meant slogging up and down the coast to find and help a desperate dragon, then that's what she should do. The future would fall into place as it would.

  Sara fell asleep to the music of the storm and dreamed of the dragon. The images that came this time were stronger and sharper than before, revealing more details of the dragon's surroundings. Through its eyes, she saw the dark stone walls of a large cave and the faint outline of a long, low opening that led out to a beach. Through its ears, she heard the pounding of the surf, the howl of the wind, and the distant cry of seabirds outside. She heard, too, the dragon's harsh breathing.

  Who are you? whispered a voice in her mind. You have plagued my dreams for nights.

  And you mine! Sara sent a rejoinder, then she added in a gentler tone, Where are you?

  Go away. No one can help me now. 1 am dying.

  You called for help for days.

  That was then. Go away.

  Where are you? Sara called, but her plea met only silence. The pain came then, just as before—the grief that sliced her heart and the physical pain that flayed across her back. She writhed under her thin blanket and sobbed until someone pounded on her door and told her to be quiet.

  When morning came, she was sore and -exhausted, but somewhere in the throes of her dream, she had detected the direction of the dragon's cave. She would go northeast up the coast toward Daron.

  The wind still whipped the surf to a rage and blew fitful showers of rain across the landscape; a heavy veil of cloud still obscured the sky The worst of the storm had passed, though, and Sara found travel was not too difficult. Following a tip from the innkeeper, she sought a footpath that ran parallel to the beach and skirted the low hills through clumps of thick shrubs and tall, wind-cured grass.

  After giving the matter some thought, Sara bought an old pack mule from a farmer and loaded her gear on its back. To her own supplies, she added bundles of firewood, a fishing pole, and a large cooking pot. The farmer looked on with curiosity until she told him flatly she was going to hunt for dragons.

  Leading the mule, Sara headed up the coast along the narrow path. After several hours of slogging through the mud puddles, being alternately soaked and buffeted, and seeing nothing but low sand hills cloaked in mist, she began to wonder if she was going in the right direction. There was nothing along this stretch of the coast that could hide a gnome, let alone a dragon. Yet her dream had said north to her consciousness, and her heart agreed. So she kept walking and hoping her intuition was right.

  At noon, she stopped for a quick meal and to rest the old mule. While she ate, she noticed the daylight seemed to be getting brighter. The rain had slowed, and now it stopped altogether as the clouds lifted. The wind !whisked away the mist and the drizzle, and in just a short while, Sara could see along the coast from horizon to horizon. She sat up abruptly and stared north. There it was, she thought. It had to be. Far ahead, almost lost in the haze of distance, was what looked like a dark line of rugged bluffs at the edge of a high headland.

  Excited now, Sara hurried through her meal and urged the mule back on the path. As she hoped, the low-lying hills beside her rose higher into a range of tree-clad slopes that led upward to the towering bluffs. The trail forked near a small creek, one path pointing upward to the hills, the other leading to the beach. Sara took the beach path and came down among the sea grass and dunes. Gray waves rolled noisily onto shore at her left. A sea gull glided silently overhead.

  The cliffs loomed up before her, dark with rain. A flock of white seabirds roosted on the sheer walls and made an endless racket of calls and cries. Sara did not see anything that resembled a cave at this end of the headland, so she and the mule made their way to the base of the cliff and worked their way along the narrow strip of sand left by the high tide. The storm had pushed the tide up higher than normal, and in some places waves had washed up against the stone. Fortunately the tide was receding, and Sara was able to search along the entire length of the high, irregular cliffs.

  Several haphazard piles of sand finally helped her locate the cave. The piles were scattered about the base of a cliff wall that sat slightly forward from the main bluff and was edged by a narrow, rock-strewn glen. A small creek tumbled down the glen in a series of delicate waterfalls before tumbling into a small pool on the beach and flowing into the sea. just to the left of the waterfalls lay a snag of driftwood and the piles of sand. At first Sara saw little else until she crossed the creek and climbed up the sand.

  There it was—a long low opening into the rock worn away by eons of storm tides. It looked like a tight fit for a dragon, even with much of the sand removed from the entrance. The blue must have had to dig its way in.

  Sara looked around carefully. She did not see any sign that the dragon had left recently. The sand was washed smooth by the rain and unmarred by tracks. Beside her, the mule tossed its head nervously. Its nostrils flared at the strange scent coming from the cave; its tail flicked its agitation. Sara took it away from the cave mouth to the other side of the creek, gave it a long drink of fresh water, and tied it to a snag of driftwood. Away from the frightening cave, the mule settled down immediately.

  Sara removed her cloak and hung it over the driftwood to dry. Then she pulled in a deep breath and summoned all her courage. On their best behavior, blue dragons tended to be willful, arrogant, and stubborn. Wounded blues were downright dangerous in their pain and unpredictability. If this dragon had set his mind on death, he would not appreciate her intrusion and could easily remove her from his cave with a single bolt of his lightning breath.

  The only things she could rely on were her years of experience dealing with dragons and her inner hope that this one still wished to live. Her face set in a calm mask, she walked to the cave entrance. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom.

  "I am here," she announced boldly and strode inside.

  The cave Sara entered was large and roomy by human standards, but for an adult blue dragon, it was small and cramped, a last resort for a sick and wounded dragon. Sara had walked barely ten paces inside when she came to a stop in front of a large mound of sand that extended back into the rear of the cave. A smaller mound lay slightly to one side of the larger pile.

  Two baleful eyes stared at her out of the sand. "Go away!" hissed a voice in the language of dragons.

  But Sara, who had trained dragons for the late Lord Ariakan, replied in Common tongue, "No. I am here to help."

  Sand exploded in all directions. A dragon head, lean and fearsome, reared up out of the mound on a long, scaly neck and loomed over the woman. "Go away!" it roared, and it drew back its head to loose a bolt of lightning.

  3

  The dragon suddenly jerked in mid-breath, his eyes grew huge and smoke leaked from his nostrils. "I know you!" snarled the blue.

  "Cobalt!" gasped Sara in genuine surprise.

  "I thought you were dead," they said in unison.

  A long silence fell as the two stared at each other. Sara knew Cobalt could still blast her with his dragon's breath. The dragons loyal to Takhisis and the Vision were as strict in their code of justice as their human Counterparts. Although few of the knights stationed outside Storm's Keep knew of her crime, Lord Ariakan
had condemned Sara to die for her treason to the knighthood. Any Dark Knight or blue dragon had a duty to kill her on sight.

  But so many things had changed since the Summer of Chaos. The Knights of Takhisis no longer existed as a viable organization. Only Cobalt's sense of loyalty to a dead cause could persuade him to kill Sara now. She fervently hoped another loyalty would be stronger. Cobalt had been the nestmate of Flare, the blue Sara had loved and trained and eventually left with Steel. She had trained Cobalt, too, for a while, before turning him over to a new rider, a handsome young knight named Vincit. Old friendships faded slowly in blue dragons. Perhaps this one would remember.

  "Blast it," murmured Cobalt, and his horned head sank slowly to the sand. "I'm too weak to kill you now.

  "Well, that's fine," Sara said matter-of-factly. "In the meantime, I'm going to make a fire and have something to eat. It was a long hike over here to find you, and I'm quite hungry."

  The dragon's breath slipped out in a long, ragged sigh. His eyelids slid shut. "Do what you want, just leave me alone."

  Sara knew better than to push her attentions on the blue. Cobalt could be terribly stubborn when confronted It would be far safer to encourage him to accept help willingly.

  Trying to look as casual as possible, Sara unloaded hen mule and brought her packs and the dry firewood into the cave. Against one wall, near the entrance, she built a fire ring of stones and laid a fire. As soon as the flames were hot, she set the caldron filled with water over the heat.

  Fishing pole in hand, she walked to the opening. "Keep the fire going for me, will you?" she called over her shoulder.

  Cobalt did not answer. Sara hadn't expected him to, but besides being stubborn, he was also curious. There was a good chance he would keep her fire burning just to see what she intended to do. Since he had not killed her yet, she suspected the dragon's strong sense of survival had not totally faded. Perhaps his stomach was hoping for something to eat.

  Sara fished for several hours in the cold surf by the cliff. She was not very good at it, being a farm girl herself, and she missed a catch more often than not. But the water swarmed with fish rising to feed after the storm, and with only a few curses and tangled lines, Sara was able to catch enough fish to make a meal for a dragon.

  She made three trips into the cave with her catch, trying not to pay too much attention to her fire. As she hoped, the flames burned hot and the water gently boiled She cleaned the fish in full sight of Cobalt, where the wind could carry the smell to his nose. She left the heads and entrails in a pile on her cleaning stone and carried the tidbits to him. Without a word, she laid the stone in the sand by his head and went back to her fire to make the soup.

  Pieces of fish, a little salt, and some bits of seaweed. Sara knew to be high in nutrients went into the caldron to simmer. The results looked nasty to her, but it would be nourishing and tempting to a starving dragon.

  While the soup cooked, Sara sat back against the wall and studied Cobalt. Although it was difficult to see much through his covering of sand, Sara could tell the blue was in bed shape. Just as her dream revealed, he was emaciated from starvation and illness, and he appeared to be favoring his back. His normal vivid blue coloring was faded to a dull gray; his brilliant eyes were lackluster and full of pain. His horns and the spiky frill around his head were flattened tightly against his skull. The torn ruins of a dragon saddle dangled from his chest.

  Cobalt stirred. "Why did you come?" he asked Suddenly.

  Sara saw his yellow eyes upon her and she returned his gaze, unblinking. "I dreamed of a blue dragon in trouble. I did not know it was you."

  "Would you have come if you had known?"

  "Yes."

  "Even knowing I could kill you?"

  Sara smiled slightly, remembering her earlier reluctance. "Yes."

  He clicked his teeth together. "Huh. Doesn't matter now. Oaths to a vanished goddess aren't much good. Who is going to listen? Everyone is dead."

  "We are not."

  "I will be soon."

  "You do not need to be. I can help you. The world has lost enough blue dragons."

  "Not without Vincit." The eyes closed again, and he slipped into sleep.

  Sara removed the caldron from the fire and set it in the sand to cool. She cooked some fish for herself, checked the mule, and retrieved her cloak. Night had come by then, filling the cave with dense darkness. Sara hauled the caldron close to Cobalt and curled up by her fire for some much-needed rest. She slept well and deeply, without dreams or distress.

  In the morning, Sara woke to find Cobalt buried in the sand again. However, the fish soup and the pile of fish entrails were gone. She smiled to herself and went fishing again.

  The next few days followed much as the first. Cobalt remained stubbornly embedded in his mound of sand, refusing to move or talk or cooperate in any way except eating. Silently, when Sara was out of the cave or asleep, Cobalt ate whatever offering she left for him.

  Encouraged by his willingness to eat, Sara used most of the daylight hours finding things to tempt an ailing dragon. She fished, set snares in the hills for rabbits, raided birds' nests, caught crabs, and collected seaweed and clams. Every day her catch was thrown in the soup pot, simmered for a few hours, and left by Cobalt's head at night. Every morning the pot was empty.

  In the evenings, Sara sat by her fire, eating her own meal and talking to the dragon in her firm, melodious voice. She told him about her village and the years she had spent there; she told him stories about Steel and Storm's Keep; she talked about anything that came to mind just so he could hear her voice. Although he did not respond, he kept an ear cocked in her direction, and he didn't once ask her to be quiet.

  On the fourth day, as Sara stirred her soup, she felt the dragon's eyes upon her. She turned and saw Cobalt gingerly stand upright on his three good legs. Sand cascaded off his back and wings and fell from his sides in damp clumps. He stood just long enough to free himself from his blanket of sand, then pulled his wings close to his body and sank back down to his belly.

  Sara wordlessly brought him the soup and watched with satisfaction while Cobalt slurped the pot dry.

  "Humph," snorted the dragon. "Can't you do better then this? I'd like something with more meat."

  Sara grinned. "Let me see your back and I will try to find something tastier."

  Oh, if you insist. You won't do any good though," he groaned. "It's an old wound and it's festering."

  Sara didn't stand still to argue with the irascible dragon. She hauled her pot to the creek, scrubbed it clean, filled it with water, and lugged it back to her fire. Then she brought out her medicine bag and laid out its contents on a blanket.

  Cobalt watched her listlessly.

  Sara began her examination at the dragon's wedge-shaped snout and worked her way, scale by scale, back to the tip of Cobalt's blunt tail. The dragon had grown some in the years he had been with Knight Vincit, not only in length but also in breadth and mass. He was about in forty-five feet long, muscular, and well built. Healthy, he would have been a handsome figure of a dragon. Sick as he was, his condition tore at Sara's heart.

  One problem was several deep parallel lacerations across his shoulders where the dragon saddle usually sat. From its appearance, Sara guessed the wound was at least several weeks old. Under normal circumstances, a dragon's rider or trainer or even the dragon itself would have treated the wound and kept it clean while it healed, but Cobalt had no human help, and his own head could not pivot around far enough to reach his damaged shoulders. The injury, unattended, had become infected, and how it oozed pus from a black, swollen mass on his back.

  The other critical problem was his right foreleg. It had apparently broken, and without splints to keep it straight, it was healing at a bad angle. His right wing, too, had suffered some damage. There were minor tears in the delicate membranes and several large, raw scrapes that looked as if the dragon had fallen heavily on that side.

  Sara had seen enough. "I'll be ba
ck," she informed her patient, sliding down his side to the ground. She hurried outside to the beach.

  After days of clouds and gloom, the wind had finally died, and the sun broke through to bestow its radiance on the sandy white beaches. Sara paused a moment to savor the balmy afternoon, then she hurried down to a cluster of rocks half submerged in the receding tide. Somewhere in one of those tidal pools, she hoped to find a creature particular to Solamnia's western coast, a small, insignificant creature she had seen only a few times.

  She searched carefully under the water in the shelter of the rocks until she found two prickly brown things that reminded her of fist-sized cockleburs. Using a stick, she gently pried them loose from their watery perch and pushed them to the edge of the water, where she tipped them upside down and speared their soft underbellies with her dagger. She carried the dead creatures into the cave and laid them out before her fire.

  "What are those?" Cobalt snorted.

  "Numbtouch sea urchins," Sara replied as she broke off the spines one by one. "They produce a slime on the points of their spines that is a very effective painkiller."

  "So?"

  "So I am going to use these little points on you while I clean your wounds and…" Sara paused to cast a quick glance at the cave entrance. If Cobalt objected violently to her remedy, she wanted a clear way out.

  "And what?" Cobalt prompted suspiciously.

  Sara took a deep breath and said hurriedly, "Reset your leg. You see, it's crooked. I shall have to re-break the fracture, set it properly, and splint it, or it will never hold your weight." She stared up at the dragon's head and waited for his reaction.

  "That seems like a great deal of trouble for nothing," he said in a mournful tone. "I am so empty. Everything is wasted. I don't want to stay in this world anymore."