Legacy of Steel

by Mary H. Herbert

  Sara crossed her arms and glared at the blue. "Things are different, but by no means is everything gone, Cobalt. Vincit was a good rider; I remember him well. He cared for you very much. Do you think he would want you waste away when there was help and food close by? I can promise you he would never forgive me if I let you die."

  Cobalt's head dropped to the sand and his eyes closed. "Do what you want, then," he muttered.

  The woman set to work before Cobalt changed his mind She did not like the heavy mood of depression that gripped the dragon, and she hoped that fixing his body would help revive his spirits. Blues could be very touchy when their riders died; some she knew had allowed themselves to die rather face the loneliness and grief. Cobalt, though, had not tried to kill himself, and despite his listlessness and misery, there were flashes of life in his choices.

  She dragged her pot of warm water beside his shoulder. With her healer's tools and the sea urchin spines, she started her first task of cleaning the infected wound on the dragon's back. First she cut away the remains of the harness and tossed the saddle aside. Prying apart the dragon's tough scales, she inserted a row of urchin spines into Cobalt's skin and muscles beside the lacerations. The anesthetic took effect immediately.

  Alternately washing and trimming the wound, she was able to remove much of the ruined scales, dried blood, pus, and dead tissue. She was relieved to see that the injury was not as deep or as damaging as she feared. When the wound was cleaned to her satisfaction, Sara slathered a liberal coating of an antiseptic ointment over the whole area and laid clean strips of cloth on top to protect it from dirt and sand.

  Next she cleaned and treated his wing injuries. His leg she saved for last, partly because of her own nervousness and partly because if he took serious objection to what she had to do, at least his other wounds were already treated.

  With one cautious eye on the dragon's fearsome teeth she inserted urchin spines above the break in his foreleg and below it.

  Cobalt lay very still, his eyes closed. Only one ear swiveled in her direction.

  Sara started talking to him in a low, reassuring voice. "This may feel very odd. Please don't move. I am going to try to pull the break apart again. Fortunately it is simple break, and the set hasn't solidified yet. I hope it will part easily." She continued to talk, describing everything she did and planned to do. As she hoped, the fracture in the bone separated easily under pressure, and Sara was able to manipulate the two ends back into proper alignment. She splinted his leg with driftwood and strips of cloth. Only then did she pull out the urchin spines.

  Cobalt let his breath out in a long sigh. A moment later he was asleep.

  4

  The next several days remained pleasantly cool and sunny. Sara was able to fulfill her promise to Cobalt for something meatier. She brought down a buck with her bow and carried it back to the cave on the back of the old mule.

  Cobalt grabbed for the deer so greedily he almost snatched the mule. The mule squealed in terror, kicked up his heels, and bolted down the beach at a speed that belied his age.

  Sara spat a curse and ran after him. By the time she returned with the mule, Cobalt slept happily in his sand nest a few broken bones lying scattered around him. She smiled and shook her head. Whether he knew it or not, the blue had taken the path to healing.

  She brought him several more deer in the following days and continued to cook the fish and seaweed soup. He ate everything she gave him. His leg took the new set and slowly healed as straight as before. The tears on his back remained clean and free of further infection. New flesh began to grow and the wounds gradually closed. Sara knew he would always have scar tissue marring the beautiful symmetry of his scales, but his muscles worked well enough and he still had the full range of movement of his wings.

  His color improved, too. From a dull, tarnished metallic appearance, he brightened to his usual shimmering blue. Sara had forgotten how handsome he could be when he was healthy. She stood in the entrance to the cave one afternoon and watched the setting sun bronze his shining body. His scales gleamed a bright sapphire blue along his head, neck, and back, then his color deepened down the extremities of his body until his feet and tail were a dark, almost greenish blue—thus the origin of his name. In the golden light of sunset, he looked as if an artist had overlaid a gilt patina over molded enamel.

  Sara smiled at him. He cocked an eye at her and shook the rough spiny frill around his head.

  "I heard what happened with you and Steel," he said abruptly.

  The woman nodded once. She sat down in the warm sunlight by the entrance and stretched out her long legs. "I freely admit I never wanted my son in Takhisis' dark knighthood—"

  Cobalt interrupted her. "And you tried to get him out Flare told me."

  "And I tried," Sara repeated softly. "I am glad now I failed. Steel was where he needed to be. He died as he wanted, courageously, with honor, doing what he thought was right. Even his father, Sturm, could not ask for more than that."

  The dragon stirred in his nest. His eyes glowed like fire in the light of sunset. He dipped his head and looked at Sara with his fiery eyes. "Why did you try to take him away from Takhisis? Why did you yourself join if you did not believe in her Vision?"

  Sara knew these questions from Cobalt were inevitable. He had been a knight's dragon, after all, a servant of the dark goddess. She realized, too, that the only way she had a hope of earning his trust was to tell him the truth.

  "I do not believe in the sovereignty of evil," she replied firmly. "There is more to this world than darkness and tyranny. Ariakan lured Steel into the dark knighthood against my wishes with promises of glory, riches, and power, I was desperate to get Steel out. I went with him to stay near him, to try to protect him. I endured years as Ariakan's mistress and servant just to be with Steel. I trained dragons, learned the ways of the knighthood, and stayed at Storm's Keep long after Ariakan was finished with me, hoping to find some way to convince my son to leave before he took the final oath. I failed in that. I even kid napped him and took him to the High Clerist's Tower to see his father's tomb. Unfortunately his birth-mother's blood proved stronger that day."

  Sara hesitated, her face creased in a sad frown. Cobalt watched her closely.

  "Now you know the truth about me," she said with a small shrug of her shoulders. "I am no minion of Takhisis and never will be."

  "But you like blue dragons," he said, a faint undertone of hope in his voice.

  She laughed softly. "Some of them."

  The dragon flipped his wings in his version of a shrug. "There is no more Queen of Darkness to obey. Ariakan's knighthood is dead. My rider is dead. There is only you and me now." He tilted his head and peered down at her. "I see no problem we cannot work through."

  Sara met his gaze eye for eye, pleased more than she imagined she would be. "You do not have to stay with me if you do not want to. There are probably real knights out there who would be pleased to have you for a partner."

  "You are the one who came to help me," he pointed out. He dropped his head back to the sand and scratched his chin on a small rock. "We will see when 1 am stronger."

  Sara crossed her arms. "Now it's your turn. Tell me about Vincit. What happened to you two?"

  Cobalt hesitated, reluctant to put the past into words. But he had started this conversation, and he realized he owed Sara his tale. "We were with a wing in Northern Ergoth, laying siege to the Solamnic fort at Gwynned during the Summer of Chaos. That's why we were not part of the final assault on the Abyss. After we lost the Vision and all contact with Lord Ariakan, our officers abandoned us. The remnants of our group tried to stay together, but the entire population turned against us. Even the kender from Hylo hunted us through the Sentinel Mountains. We tried to leave the island, only to fall into an ambush. Most of our companions were killed. Vincit and I barely escaped. We could have left then- should have, I suppose. Vincit was consumed with rage. He wanted revenge, so we attacked a small party of Solamnic Knight
s near the coast. Stupid, really. One had a silver dragon with him." Cobalt fell silent, remembering the aerial battle that day.

  "A silver dragon did this to you?" Sara prompted.

  "I was weak from hunger. The silver was bigger stronger, faster. It wounded Vincit in the second pass. I fled with the saddle dangling from my shoulder. Vincit was still alive, still clinging to me, but he died before I found a place to hide. I made my way across the water and eventually found this cave."

  "So now we both know what has happened to the other. What do we do now?" Sara mused, more to herself than to the dragon.

  "Eat?" he suggested.

  Sara laughed. Her robust sound of merriment filled the cave and fell pleasantly on Cobalt's ears. He would not tell her, not yet, but he liked her laughter and the sound of her voice when she talked to him. Her voice helped fill the aching emptiness in his thoughts and soothed his sadness. He lifted his head from the sand to watch as she lugged her fish pot within his reach.

  "Eat well," she ordered. "Tomorrow you are going outside to stretch."

  Cobalt obeyed.

  The sun shone warm on the sand the next day when Sara urged the dragon out of his nest and into the light, He chose a sheltered place by the stream to bask in the sun, and he looked so comfortable stretched out on his belly, Sara patted his side and bade him good-bye.

  "I need supplies from the village south of here," she told him "I should be back by dark. And don't eat the mule." She shook a finger at him.

  "Humph," he snorted. "That old thing is too stringy."

  "Good. Just remember that," she said, shouldering her bow and quiver.

  She left him soaking in the sun and hiked south along the faint path back to Godnest. In the village, she purchased loaf of bread, some cloth for bandages, a new blanket, a round of cheese, and for a bucket of clams she picked along the way, she got a small bag of potatoes. She enjoyed a mug of ale at a different tavern, then put the sea to her right and walked back north.

  It was nearly dark by the time she reached the cliffs with her supplies and a brace of rabbits she had brought down along the trail. She saw Cobalt's place by the stream was empty. She hurried past the waterfalls and climbed the mound of sand before the cave. Halfway up, a sound froze her in midstep. A guttural voice whispered something. Sara did not catch the words, but she recognized the tongue. Goblins.

  Vile little scavengers! She dropped to the sand and peered cautiously over the top. A dark, squat shape hunkered in the darker shadows by the opening. At least three, maybe four, shapes hovered close by. Their attention seemed to be focused on the interior of the cave. Sara listened and thought she heard the soft snoring of the dragon. If Cobalt was asleep, the goblins probably intended to sneak in and steal whatever they could find.

  Sara curled her lips back in disgust. She hated goblins ever since her stay at Storm's Keep. Nasty, sniveling, boot-licking, conniving… her list was endless. She would be strung out on an ant nest before she'd let those brutes near the blue.

  She dropped her bundles to the sand and silently strung her bow. Fitting an arrow to the string, she took aim at the shape by the door.

  At that moment, the other three crept cautiously into the cave's mouth.

  The woman loosed the string. Her arrow sped true and pierced her target before it could utter a cry. The goblin collapsed to the sand. Sara sprang up and over the top of the mound, slithered down to the cave entrance, and crouched by the stone wall. A second arrow waited in her bow.

  How many more are there, she wondered. The stench of the dead goblin filled her nose. Her throat, irritated by the smell, tickled a warning.

  "Cobalt! Goblins!" she yelled before a sneeze could give her away.

  A loud squawk and a squeal erupted from the blackness in the cave. All at once the darkness was splintered by a crack of lightning, the blue dragon's breath weapon In that flash, Sara saw three goblins caught in the brilliant explosion of light. They stood immobile, frozen in the blinding radiation.

  The light flicked out. The goblins yelped and bolted for the entrance. Sara waited as they charged past her then she fired at the nearest fleeing form. It toppled face first into the sand. A second blast of lightning arced out of the cave and caught one more goblin in the back. The other vanished into the night.

  Sara hurried into the cave. A terrible stench hit her like a blow. "Cobalt, could you start the fire? I want some light."

  Another bolt of lightning seared from the blue and ignited a roaring fire in her fire ring. The flames illuminated the front of the cave, revealing the source of the horrid smell. A goblin Sara had not seen before had caught the full force of the dragon's lightning. It lay sprawled on its back, its short, red corpse smoking gently.

  "Ugh," Sara managed to gasp. She did not bother to say more until she had hauled all the dead goblins away from the cave and left them where the tide would carry them away.

  She came back wiping her hands and looking disgusted. "Well, the mule is gone, and there are several tracks leading up into the hills," she said. "That must have been a small raiding party."

  Cobalt huffed a cloud of steam from his nostrils. "Little thieves probably thought I had treasure or something in here. As if I'd ever let any of them have it!"

  The woman dropped her bundles by the fire. "But now we have a problem. At least one escaped and probably made it back to the main camp. If he didn't get a good look at this cave, he may convince the others to come back here to check it out. Goblins can be very tenacious."

  "I can handle goblins," Cobalt said with a ring of derision his voice.

  "Of course you can," Sara responded, patting the big dragon on the neck. "When you are healthy and strong and not trapped in a small cave. But both of us are familiar with some of their nastier weapons. What if they threw a pot of scavenger mold in here? Neither one of us could escape it."

  Cobalt looked thoughtful. "I am too weak to fly yet. What if I walked? We could find another cave."

  Sara examined his splinted foreleg then climbed up to look at his back. The lacerations were healing nicely. "I know of several near my home," she told him. "I could take you there to recover your strength until you make up your mind what you want to do."

  He grumbled deep in his throat. "I do not like to run before goblins. It is not seemly."

  Sara said with a laugh, "Then consider it simply an expedient move. I should be closer to home anyway. I have crops to plant and things to do."

  She fixed his soup with the rabbits and ate her own meal of cheese and bread. Before she went to sleep in her blankets, she strung a trip wire across the cave's entrance and added extra wood to the fire.

  Despite her casual tone to Cobalt, the presence of goblins in the vicinity of the cave worried her deeply. Although goblins were minions of Takhisis, they would not be reluctant to kill a blue if they realized the dragon was injured. And they'd certainly have no compunction about killing her for her blankets or her bow or the bits of gear she had in the cave. She needed to get Cobalt back on his feet and strong enough to travel soon!

  She roused the dragon at dawn and urged him outside to walk in the sand while she fished for his breakfast. This time she did not have to cook the soup; she simply tossed the fish to him, and he scooped them up as fast as she unhooked them. When he was finished eating, she urged him into the water and had him swim back and forth until he was so tired he could barely stand upright She left him basking in the sun and went to hunt for meat. Wary of goblins, she stayed near the cave and hunted in the hills nearby.

  She found more goblin tracks and considered following them to see if her hunch about a larger raiding party was right. Then common sense returned, and she veered off the path to stay close to the bluffs. One woman wouldn't stand a chance against a pack of goblins.

  She brought down a wild cow for Cobalt and, cursing the theft of the mule every step of the way, butchered the beast and dragged it, piece by piece, back to the dragon.

  Cobalt devoured every scrap, belch
ed his thanks, and went to sleep.

  Sara settled down on the sand and leaned back against the dragon's warm shoulder. She was so tired after her exertions to feed the big lummox, she also promptly fell asleep in sun. She hadn't napped very long when a sound intruded upon her peace.

  "Sara" whispered a faint voice. "Sara, they're back."

  The woman stirred, startled awake by the urgency in the voice. Her eyes flew open.

  "Don't move. They think I am still asleep. They're in the rocks by the waterfall. They do not see you."

  Sara stayed still and slouched lower behind the dragon's back. She glanced around, saw it was late afternoon. The sun's rays slanted nearly horizontal across the white-tipped waves. "Are they moving?" she hissed.

  "Not yet. They are just watching. I think there are only two"

  "Scouts."

  "do I blast them?"

  "I think you'll have to. If you tried to move from here, they would see immediately that you are hurt."

  "With pleasure." Cobalt leisurely lifted his head and looked in the general vicinity of the lurking goblins. A fierce blast of lightning seared from his mouth and exploded on a cluster of rocks midway up the waterfall. Pieces of rock and debris flew everywhere. Something shrieked, and a small reddish figure bolted out of the cloud of dust and scrambled up the glen.

  Cobalt loosed his lightning again. Another thunderous blast exploded into the hillside. When the dirt and rubble settled down, the glen was still.

  The dragon heaved himself to his feet and limped slowly over to the creek to examine his accuracy. Sara hurried after him and climbed up among the shattered rocks to make certain the two scouts were dead. She found them—or what was left of them—and after a cursory check, she hurried back down.

  "They're just like the others. Flat faces, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and all. And look at this," she said, thrusting something under Cobalt's nose. "They all had bits of stolen armor and old clothes, but every one of them had this badge on his chest."

  The dragon tilted one eye to study the patch she had torn from the goblin's uniform. It looked black, with a red hatchet crudely painted in the center. "Only a large tribe with a recognized leader bothers with badges," he remarked. "They are going to be curious when their scouts do not return."