Dragon Rule

by E. E. Knight

  She picked the stone up and put it back. That was how Mother and Father had left it; that’s how the egg cave would remain. Except for a little bit of stained stone, that star was the only evidence that her family had ever lived in this cave.

  It was a good cave. Water and light and air and well out of seasonal changes of temperature. It could be improved, of course.

  “What does the Star of Silverhigh signify?” she asked DharSii, to get his mind off another dead end.

  “One point for each of the gifts of the Four Spirits,” DharSii said. “And a fifth point for the mysterious gift. Our ability to change what we touch.”

  “How do you mean?”

  DharSii wandered around the cave, inspecting. She supposed he was just being thorough. “No member of another race comes away from an encounter with a dragon unchanged. Some hate us forever, others want nothing more than to be around us, observe us, be protected by us, even if it means a lifetime of shoveling up waste and hauling it to the nearest dung heap.

  “Of course, I’m sure you’ve noted the effect of dragon-blood and heard of the strange powers of our dead bones and teeth and so on.”

  “Yes. When I was in the east I almost ended up as part of someone’s medicine supply. Aren’t most of those legends, though?” Wistala said.

  “Not all. The Tyr himself has been feeding bats dragon-blood for decades. His original strain of rather overlarge, greedy cave-bats has grown into an entirely different species of quasi-bat. NiVom in Ghioz, who’s been breeding with more care toward developing certain traits, has created gargolyes almost as large as old Anklemere used to keep.”

  “I should pay a visit to Ghioz and see what he’s up to,” Wistala said to herself.

  DharSii continued: “We must use that gift wisely, our power to change what we touch. The problem is, destruction is too easy. It has a terrible beauty. A burning tower falls and in one glorious moment, we forget all the effort and care it took to lay the stones for a tower that will even stand up straight.”

  “Where did we get that gift, I wonder?” Wistala asked.

  “Some old songs say the sun gave it to us, so pleased was she with our ability to tame the blighters. Others say the moon snuck it in to ruin us, for once a creature has tasted dragon-blood and enjoyed the benefits, the desire grows in them for more. Around Hypatia much of that lore has been forgotten, but it still exists in the east. That’s why there are practically no dragons there, though they figure so strongly into their culture.”

  He finished his circuit in silence. Wistala waited, lost in memories. “Did anyone else return to the cave?” he finally asked.

  “My brother,” Wistala said. “I met him here. I gave him that droopy eye, too. Father, too. We tried to warn him but we were too small. He couldn’t hear us. He left again, fighting.”

  “If it was a treasure of your parents, he might have carried it away,” DharSii said.

  “You don’t know our father,” Wistala said. “He was in a rage. I don’t think he had the presence of mind to look at anything except the bodies of Mother and my sister.”

  “Still, there’s a small chance.”

  “Very well,” Wistala said. “I’ll take you to where he died.”

  She left the cave with small regret and tumultuous feelings. It would be a good place for eggs, if she could ever banish her memories. Once they reached the surface, she guided DharSii north.

  The promontory with the old bligher altar was very much as Wistala remembered it, except the obelisk stones with their cryptic old runes no longer loomed quite so high. She re-experienced the ache brought on by the long, long climb down to the rushing white water turning its near-loop around the outcropping in her trips to get water for Father—she even smelled the rank rot of the old driftwood tossed up by floods with dwarfsbeard growing on it.

  “This may have been a dragon-throne,” DharSii said.

  Wistala didn’t know what he was talking about, but rather than ask DharSii to explain yet again she just cocked her head.

  “Before the founding of Silverhigh, after the dragons had tamed the blighters, they worshiped us. Again, I suspect your parents knew something of the Star Order if he chose this as a place to land and die.”

  “He had a little help with the dying,” Wistala said. “I led hunters right to him. Unwittingly.”

  “Did he ever mention anything about a crystal?”

  “No. Never. I’m sure of it. I hardly knew what the word meant until I saw the crystal ball—wait. Intanta. She had a ball. She claimed it was part of the old sun-shard. Why didn’t I remember—Oh, I’m a fool!”

  DharSii stared hard at her. “You’re many things, Wistala, but you’re not a fool.”

  “This Intanta traveled with a circus, it belongs to a dwarf named Brok now—she and her gang of humans never mixed much with the rest. They were—shady, I suppose you would call them. I think they cheated people and stole. But she had this crystal. It was most strange. It helped a woman—Rayg’s mother, in fact—with the nausea she suffered while carrying child. It also comforted her during birth.”

  “I wonder if Rayg knows more than he’s saying. He’s studying the sun-shard,” DharSii said.

  “I hardly know him,” Wistala said. “I doubt Lada would even recognize him. She’s old now, too, worn down with work as a priestess.”

  “Then this Intanta is surely dead. Do you suppose the crystal is still with the circus?”

  “Intanta’s people had left when last I met the circus. Her granddaughter, Iatella, inherited it, I believe. She read my fortune with it when she was just a little girl. She told me AuRon was still alive when I thought him dead.”

  “I wonder how it ended up in the hands of that human? You say they were a strange tribe?”

  “I always had the feeling they traveled with the circus, rather than as part of it. They dressed oddly, even for humans. Lots of metallic pieces on their clothing. They sewed layers of coins onto bandannas and belts and such.”

  “Like they were imitating dragon-scale?”

  “Perhaps, I thought they just wanted them to rattle together when they walked.”

  “Just as Silverhigh still has its loyalists who still keep the faith, so too are the men who served it and later rebelled, passing their traditions on. It appears,” DharSii said. “I have a new quarry to hunt. Thank you, Wistala, you’ve given me hope.”

  “I should return to the Lavadome. I have promises to keep.”

  “And oaths that must never be broken,” DharSii said, a touch of fire in his voice. “We part for now, Wistala. If you think of anything else, or learn more from Rayg, you can leave a message with Scabia at the Sadda-Vale. Coin is no doubt growing short and I must return with more.”

  He gave a brief bow to the altar Father had lain bleeding on, spread his wings, and launched himself off the precipice Wistala had fallen down all those years ago. Dogs with teeth locked into her tearing at her flesh. DharSii caught an updraft, turned, and swooped over her, gently running the end of his tail down her fringe. With that, he was gone once again.

  BOOK THREE

  Charity

  “THE ONLY SUCCOR A DRAGON GIVES FREELY IS DEATH.”

  —From Hazeleye’s notes on dragons

  Chapter 15

  Wistala slept in the luxury of the Tyr’s chamber. Her brother was away; she felt she deserved the rich bed of the finest damasks, so tightly woven to the cushioning they were guaranteed not to catch on scale.

  Also, there was less of a chance that a messenger would seek her here instead of the Queen’s chamber. Nilrasha was a fine dragon, but she had garish tastes; there were far too many skins and interesting bone sculptures of various animals and hominids for Wistala to relax. It was like trying to sleep in an abattoir.

  Exhausted from travel, from revived grief in visiting the deathscapes of her parents, and from calls to her attention from NoSohoth so frequent that they invaded her dreams.

  The Firemaids and Drakwatch are having a mock
battle beneath the griffaran columns you must judge, my Queen. CoTathanagar wishes an audience, he has heard there must be a second messenger for NoFhyriticus in Hypatia and is wondering if the position has been filled yet. There are three new hatchlings in Wyrr Hill you must view. The Tyr’s Demen Legion is appointing a new captain and the dwarfs are attacking the Lavadome from the river ring . . .

  Dwarfs? Attacking from the river ring?

  She opened an eye. Strange roars and calls had broken out from the Audience Chamber.

  She rolled out of bed and became tangled in the curtains—curse them, some chamber-thrall must have drawn them; they were open when she’d settled down. She staggered out into the passageway leading to the Audience Chamber, dragging purple material.

  Still shaking the cobwebs from her head, she entered the Audience Chamber on the Tyr’s platform, a little above the confused throng of thralls, messenger bats, griffaran, and dragons.

  NoSohoth came through the other door as she entered, looking his usual prim self, every black-tipped scale in place. Did that dragon ever sleep? Or did he just have the ability to instantly transform into wide-awake and arranged.

  “I’ve a Firemaid messenger for you, my Queen,” NoSohoth said.

  Wistala knew her features, but her name escaped her at the moment. She was a young Firemaid, supervising the Firemaidens in their first real duties. Wingless Firemaidens typically had the easiest posts in which to learn their duties, at the entrances to the Lavadome. The occasional escaping thrall was the biggest challenge they ever had to face.

  “Dwarfs—they came up the Nor’flow. Already across. . . the river ring. . . .” she panted.

  “Dwarfs!” several in the assembly gasped.

  “Wheel of . . . Wheel of Fire! I remember. . . their flag from the . . . pass. Where Takea. . . fell.”

  Wistala fought with the remains of her brother’s curtains. A long way to come for the Wheel of Fire. Even overland, it would be a hard trip. They’d come underground, where three dimensions had to be negotiated and obstacles couldn’t just be hacked away. They must have used the river.

  “Where do we meet them?” NoSohoth asked.

  It suddenly occurred to Wistala that as leader of the Firemaids and as Queen-Consort she must direct the defense. Battles were dreadful, detestable things, but how much more dreadful was defeat?

  The responsibility fell on her like a net. She was oathed as a Firemaid to protect the hatchlings of the Lavadome and as Queen-Consort to be at the forefront in defending the dragon-realm. Master your emotions, Wistala! she heard Rainfall say. Confidence flows downhill like water.

  They might have an hour, especially if there was fighting in the tunnels leading from the river ring. There was always a Firemaid or two on guard at the tunnels. If they could hold the tunnel mouths, the Lavadome would be secure.

  Even if the dwarfs made it to the tunnel mouths, the Lavadome was huge. It would be hours before they could reach Imperial Rock on foot, even trotting.

  Only dragons could make it there that quickly.

  “Send word to all the hills—evacuate, back to Imperial Rock. Leave home and hoard to the enemy, we must unite here and win or be cut to pieces in parts,” she told NoSohoth.

  She sent another dragon to alert the Drakwatch, some thralls to drive cattle into Imperial Rock in case the dwarfs besieged it, and a drake to Ankelene Hill to warn them to shut and bar the mighty portals at the entrance to their hill.

  SiHazathant and Regalia arrived together, as always. No sense separating them.

  “You two, go to the Aerial Host. I know most of it is in the Upper World, but there are a few sick, and HeBellereth is somewhere. He just gave a report yesterday. Send whatever they can to the river ring holes on the north side, try to hold the dwarfs there.”

  NoSohoth was still standing around, stupefied. “Didn’t I tell you to evacuate the hills.”

  “Yes, Queen-Consort. But—well, this hasn’t happened in an age. They won’t like leaving their hills. There are eggs—”

  “They’ll have to be brought here. Fly the eggs here, bring extra carriers, put them in carry baskets like wounded drakes.”

  She suddenly remembered the name of the Firemaid messenger. “You, Aruthia, go to the Firemaid hill. Get everyone you can, have them go to the other hills and gather eggs and hatchlings and bring them to the Imperial Rock. They should trust the Firemaids.”

  “The Ankelenes won’t leave their hill, too many valuable records there,” NoSohoth said.

  “I’ll send them the Tyr’s demen legion. They should be able to hold Ankelene Hill, even against dwarfs. They have those great decorative gates, now’s the time to test them. We can aid them from Imperial Rock. The dwarfs might not know how big the Lavadome is, how high we can fly. I know I never imagined . . . well, get going.”

  She didn’t know as much as she should about dwarf-fighting. Actually, it wasn’t so much the dwarfs you fought as their infernal machines. Obviously they’d used some kind of contraption to move south against the hard-flowing current of the Nor’flow.

  The only other thing she knew was that dwarfs were much better on the defense than the attack. Her father always told her that chasing down dwarfs in a tunnel was the most dangerous hunt a dragon could overtake. They could look like rocks until they leaped out of concealment, swinging an ax for your throat.

  But get them in the open, and they’re not so hard to squash.

  Oh Father! I thought I was done with the Wheel of Fire. Do feuds never cease?

  Wistala gave more orders for any of the young dragonriders in the Aerial Host, plus such of their women as wanted to take up arms, to be readied to defend the lower galleries and windows in the Imperial Rock.

  Then she went up to the top level. From there she could see and direct the defense of the Lavadome.

  She learned she was fortunate in one matter. HeBellereth and two of his dragons of the Aerial Host had returned to the Lavadome with small injuries from their brushes with pirates on the Sunstruck Sea. She saw Ayafeeia whispering to him.

  “If there’s going to be a battle, Wistala, you should be properly suited. We must have you looking the part,” HeBellereth said.

  “What do you mean?” Wistala asked.

  “Follow me, my Queen,” Ayafeeia said. “We still have a moment to prepare, and the engagement in the tunnels is not yet decided. Let’s hope it’s all for nothing, and the Firemaids hold them.”

  “I’d rather help at the tunnels.”

  HeBellereth was breathing hard, twitching to get into battle. “You’re the Queen. Your place is here. Ayafeeia, see to your Queen. I’ll go and reinforce the tunnels to the river ring.”

  With that he rushed to the gardens and launched himself into the red light of the Lavadome.

  Ayafeeia led her down to a chamber beneath the old Imperial Residence. Wistala had only visited it once before. It was a storehouse for gifts from the upholds, trophies taken in war, first lost scale of Imperial Line hatchlings—that sort of thing. Within the cramped chamber were a number of barred cages holding the most valuable items.

  Veeeeee—Ayafeeia whistled through a nostril for thralls, and some fat old servants of the line appeared.

  “The Tyr’s armor,” Ayafeeia ordered.

  The thralls pointed and Ayafeeia nosed open a barred stall. In it were gleaming pieces of dragon-armor.

  “Most dragons don’t like armor in battle—we have scale and the additional weight slows you down. Besides, you can’t fly with this heavy plate. It was built for FeHazathant but I believe you’ll fit in it, with your framing and musculature.”

  The thralls and Ayafeeia extracted the pieces. Someone had kept it polished and oiled the leather straps. It was beautifully arranged and decorated; perhaps some dwarf had helped fashion it.

  They put it on. Wearing something against the scale felt odd to Wistala. She felt herself a prisoner of the armor. But it did cover her head, chest, hearts, and flanks admirably—though her crest was squa
shed.

  “I don’t know,” Wistala said. “It’s supposed to be for the Tyr.”

  “You’re Queen-Consort, and the Lavadome is under attack. You want dragons to see you, don’t you?”

  “Not being able to fly makes sure of your courage,” Wistala said. “Your leader can’t fly away when he’s wearing this.”

  Ayafeeia snorted. “She’s wearing this. You look good in it, Queen-Consort Wistala. Let’s not delay, now that you’re dressed for the party, go up and see and be seen.”

  Party. Wistala stifled a snort. Ayafeeia avoided the socializing Imperial Line, despite being of Tyr Fehazathant’s line. The only parties she had a taste for were battles.

  Wistala made a light clattering sound as she walked wearing the armor ching-ching-ching-ching—the sound reminded her of coin rattling in a purse.

  She went to the top of Imperial Rock, reflecting light from the polished armor on the passageways around her.

  “Your orders, my Queen,” Ayafeeia asked.

  “You know more about warfare than I do. Should we fight them in the hills, or concentrate on defending Imperial Rock?”

  “We’re better off staying mobile, striking and flying again. If you stay in one place, they use war machines on you. Spirits, are they in the Lavadome already?”

  Wistala saw one of the Aerial Host flying in loops at the edge of the Lavadome, above the north passageway down to the river ring.

  Dragons, drakes and drakka, many carrying eggs or with hatchlings riding on their back, streamed toward Imperial Rock. The Drakwatch, guarding the entrances, urged them on.

  The dwarfs came in waves. Wistala had to admire the precision of the attack.

  War machines fired clusters of sparking missiles into the air at the flying dragons. They spread as they rose, like dandelion seeds blown by a strong wind. A Firemaid dove, dropping fire and a fountain of sparks shot up around her. She rolled over and fell.

  Flying wildly, the last of the Aerial Host she’d sent to defend the holes swooped left and right, avoiding the fireworks.