Dragon Rule

by E. E. Knight

Had she gone mad from the pain?

  “We can talk later,” DharSii said. “Let’s see to the wound.”

  Wistala squeezed herself out of the troll cave and flew downslope.

  She, who’d as Queen-Consort once directed the defense of the Lavadome against an invasion, who’d held the Red Mountain pass with a handful of Firemaids against the Ironrider hordes, now waged campaigns against trolls and hurried to find dwarfsbeard to patch a painful but minor wound.

  The terrible methodology of war, the chaos and life-and-death decisionmaking, the ceremonies over the dead and the praise to the heroic living . . .

  She didn’t miss any of it one bit.

  She’s so much rather be trading philosophy with DharSii after a good dinner, or watching birds go about their clockwork routines, or trying her voice at poetry.

  Alighting at the fallen tree, she searched for the ropy mass of dwarfsbeard. Yes, there it was, a thick tangle like hair run wild on an ancient dwarf. When broken and pulled apart, the thick white glue, like a thicker and stickier dandelion milk, acted on wounds, both cleaning them and speeding healing.

  Unlike on her long-ago errands with her father to gather dwarfsbeard, she simply broke off the rooted end of the trunk, thick with the where water was pooling and rotting out the wood, and flew back holding the piece of tree tight under her chest. They could pluck it off the stump at leisure.

  She returned and found Ayafeeia unconscious.

  “Just as well,” DharSii said. “With that skin missing and torn, it must be painfull. She won’t have an easy recovery.”

  “I doubt she’ll be able to move,” Wistala said. “We’ll have to fly some blighters up here to tend to her wounds and sew her up again.”

  “This is my old warwing Imfamnia’s sister, is it not?” DharSii asked.

  “Her name’s Ayafeeia. Her Firemaids rescued me from the demen.”

  “Was she part of the conspiracy against RuGaard?” DarSii asked.

  “She’s never been interested in politics. She’s in charge of the Firemaids. Really in charge, I mean, back when I served as Queen-Consort I was their chief by tradition.”

  “Strange of her to leave them, then, if there’s war building,” DharSii said.

  “I’d heard from more than one dragon that the reason my brother had any success at all in the Lavadome is that he wasn’t part of any faction. No one could tell which line of dragons he sprang from, and he favored none, so they accepted his rule. The new Tyr and his Queen must not be quite so acceptable.”

  “Ooo, glad that’s over,” a new, high-pitched voice squeaked.

  DharSii and Wistala turned and sniffed.

  A huge, leathery bat emerged from behind Ayafeeia’s ear like a groundhog coming out of its hole.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, your worship. M’name’s Larb, one of Tyr RuGaard’s faithful servants. Oooh, I’m chilled, no bat was ever meant to fly so high, I’m frozen from ear-tip to fantail. I’m not askin’ too much by supposin’ you could—”

  “Don’t listen to him,” the exhausted dragonelle said, opening a bloodshot eye. “He’s one of your brother’s dragon-blooded bats.”

  “Then he can leave off begging us, and go to work on your wound,” Wistala said. “No opening up a fresh vein while you’re in there, either, you little flying rat, or I’ll toast you with some mushrooms.”

  “No need for threats, now,” Larb said, scuttling behind Ayafeeia’s crest for cover. “I’ll lick the wound clean, I will. Jes’ I’m so stiff and sore from the cold of the airs.”

  The bat scooted across Ayafeeia’s flank and buried its nose in the wound, licking and snipping ragged flesh with sharp little snaggleteeth.

  Bat saliva, Wistala had learned, brought a pleasant numbness to minor wounds.

  “We’ll need to close that up as soon as possible, dwarfsbeard or no,” DharSii said. “Perhaps, Ayafeeia, you can make it out into the light. Fresh air and what passes for sunlight around here will help keep it clean until we can get you stitched up. I know instinct is to retreat to a cave to lick your wounds, but in the interests of hygiene—”

  “My love,” Wistala interrupted. “Your turn to run for help. Go back to the hall and get some blighters who can stitch wounds, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” DharSii said. “I shall return with help before the sun peaks.”

  He exited and Wistala listened to the fading beats of his wings before returning to Ayafeeia. She nosed more dwarfsbeard into the trail left by the cleaning bat.

  Ayafeeia winced as the bat incautiously planted a wing on raw muscle beneath torn-away skin.

  “What brought you such a distance, through cold and winter storm and danger?” Wistala asked, both curious and eager to divert her relative by mating from the bat’s not-so-tender ministrations.

  Ayafeeia managed to raise her head. “Another civil war’s begun. Struggle for power between NiVom and Imfamnia against the twins. Skotl kills Wyrr. Assassin hominids kill protectors in their resorts. It will be the death of all of us.”

  It all sounded dreadfully familiar.

  More war, more deaths, more pain. RuGaard would be in agony of the fate of poor Nilrasha. And AuRon, on his way to one of his secret meetings with Natasatch—what was he flying into?

  All that could wait. Once more, she had duty to attend. It wouldn’t do to have Ayafeeia fly all this way just to die on their doorstep.