Dragon Champion

by E. E. Knight

  Auron took another welcome tongueful of water and then went to work among the bloody ruins of the elves’ victims before settling down for a wait.

  Only one more body came out of the tent after the screaming stopped, but the bearers could not be bothered with dragging it all the way to the other end of the box canyon. They tossed the torn body of the pathetically skinny boy against the canyon wall. One gestured at the other with a bloody pair of tongs, and the other cackled as they staggered back inside.

  The sun came up an hour after the last sounds of bloody revelry died. Auron looked up into the sky and saw the vultures circling. Perhaps six or seven rode the air currents above, with new ones arriving every few minutes. The others came of their own instinct, attracted by the sight of their brethren gathering.

  A pair of waste elves came running down the canyon entrance on the other side of the tent, shouting an alarm. Half-awake elves and men rolled to their feet, reaching for weapons.

  Auron let them gather under the unsettling sight of the carrion beasts above and hear the tale from the relief.

  “Twas a ghastly sight. Gongglass and Nardi are in pieces. Couldn’t tell who was who. They were taken unawares, and the intruders left no tracks anywhere near the fight. Whatever it was tore them apart from the wind.”

  The elves and men muttered, looking around the canyon walls, then to the vulture-filled sky.

  “Blood, blood on watch rock!” one said, looking toward the lookout Auron had visited.

  “Where’s Tirl? And Sandglitter?”

  “Dead!” Auron roared, lifting his head from the pile of bodies. He had festooned himself with guts and tucked severed arms into his crest so they stood up like antlers. “Your lives were forfeited with the treasure you stole! It bore a curse. All who touched it are the Revengerog’s, summoned from the abyss at the breaking of the Hidden Seal.” From the pit Auron swayed back and forth, surreptitiously letting go his urine in a wide arc. He had been long without water, and it was strong with a bitter acid odor.

  The horses and camels, already nervous with the waste elves’ fear in the air, caught the powerful scent in the swirling airs of the canyon. The camels bellowed and the horses screamed and ran, adding to the confusion before the tent. Elves threw themselves from their caves as the crowd dissolved pell-mell through the tent, in a footrace where a roaring blood-drenched demon would take the hindmost. In the rush, the supports were knocked out from the tent, and it came down on men and animal alike.

  Auron placed his front legs on the edge of the pit, stretching his neck as far as it would go. A transfixed man stood gaping from under a wide hat, eyes blinking in the dust of fleeing men and animals. Auron would have to kill one more. He dragged the costume of intestinal tresses across the floor of the canyon.

  The man stood, laughing like an imbecile. He bent over, cradling his stomach, sat, and took off his hat to fan himself.

  If he’s thinking I’ll spare him out of fear of killing a madman, he’s in for a surprise, Auron thought. If he really has lost his senses, it’s still the kindest thing to do. Then Auron paused—something about the man’s circlet, pulling his hair away from his face, caught his eye. The metalwork was of a style he had seen before. And the laugh had a familiar bray to it.

  “Auron,” Naf said in thick Parl. “I’ve not touched the treasure yet, so you have no cause to kill me, ‘Revengerog.’”

  After Auron washed himself in the pool, he emerged to find Naf extracting a camel, trapped in the fallen tent. The beast was in no mood to be quieted, and Naf beat it into a corner with the flat of his scimitar and tied it securely.

  He returned to Auron covered in bites and spit. “That camel put up near as good a fight as you did last fall, drake,” Naf said.

  “I hope that is meant to be a compliment. If it is an insult—”

  “No, no insult intended. I don’t know dragons, but it’s sad to learn they have no sense of humor.”

  “All of a dragon’s senses are sharp. Sight, hearing—”

  “Wrak! That’s not what I meant. Men laugh when they encounter the unusual, the ridiculous. The unexpected.” Naf poked his head into a tent, entered it, and came out again with some sacks over his shoulder and a waterskin made out of something the size of a goat.

  “I don’t understand,” Auron said. “The unexpected means one should be cautious, not laugh.”

  “How do you explain color to the blind? It’s an unexpected ending to a story, perhaps. Here’s an example of what I mean. ‘Two cannibals are sitting by the fire. One says,“I hate my wife’s brother.” So the other one says, “Then try the potatoes.” ’ Do you see?”

  Auron stuck out his tongue and tried to smell the humor. “No.”

  “True, it’s a poor jest.”

  “What were you doing with these wretched elves?”

  Naf began to fill the sacks with food. Sides of meat wrapped in paper, flat loaves of bread, a pot of cheese, dried fruit and nuts disappeared into the sacks. “I didn’t know the kind of robbers they were when I joined them. After I split from Hross, I went south to seek a fortune, and word was going around about an attack on the Golden Road. I thought I’d try for the loot, but all they got was a caravan on its way back. We missed the sack.”

  “I was there. They didn’t sack the dwarves.”

  “I’m happy for the dwarves. They dealt honestly.”

  “We were attacked by someone with a strange standard. A figure of a man inside a circle.”

  Naf paused. “The Andam were involved? If I’d—”

  “Andam?” Auron asked.

  “It translates into Parl as ‘true.’ I think they’re lieges of some barbarian king. Hross was disgusted with the dwarves and wanted to go north and join them. That’s one of the reasons we parted.”

  “You fear them?”

  “They have some unusual beliefs. I don’t mean unusual in the humorous sense, here.”

  “They fought well,” Auron said, remembering the horsemen.

  “Good thing you won. They don’t take prisoners. Well, women, they take. One of their practices is that the man who fathers the most children is held in high regard. They don’t much care how the babies get started, as long as they do.”

  “These waste elves were not kind to their captives.”

  “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You did nothing to stop it, either.”

  “Why should a drake care? You’d eat them, given the chance.”

  Auron snorted. “If I were hungry, and there was no easier meal, yes. But I wouldn’t kill six if one would fill my belly. Nor would I torture them first.”

  Naf nodded. “Are you hungry now?”

  “I’ve had my fill.”

  “I’ll show you something, drake. I’d like to part on better terms than before,” he said, and went to a small tent. He rolled out a wine barrel, still wrapped in cargo netting. He found a mallet and pounded the edge into the top of the barrel. He lifted out the lid and said something in a foreign tongue. A pair of hands wrapped themselves around his neck, and he pulled out a girl-child. Her skin was stained purple with wine, and she squinted in the sun as she trembled in Naf’s arms.

  “Auron, this is Hieba. I’ve been watching her since we hit the caravan. I hid her from those bastards this past week. You solved my problem of what to do with her.”

  Auron flicked out his tongue. The dark-haired girl smelled of wine. “You will take her out of the desert?”

  “No, I’m going to ask you to do that. Some of the elves might work up the courage to come back. They’d certainly follow my trail; I’m not skilled enough to hide it from a waste elf. I’ve got a chance in ten of getting out of the drylands alive. She has better odds with you.”

  “Me, look after a human child? I go to the mountains to seek an ancestor.”

  “NooMoahk?” Naf said. “He’s long dead. Years, or so I’ve heard.”

  “That’s been said before, and those who believed it were wrong. They died fo
r their bad guess.”

  The girl babbled something to Naf, but he showed no more signs of understanding than Auron did.

  “Is she weaned?” Auron asked. He knew hominid children drank from their mother’s breasts—and not much else.

  “She’s four or so, and drinking goat milk. I know no more about children than you, save what I remember from being one.”

  “What are you doing with her?”

  “I found her hiding under a mule’s hind legs when the caravan was taken. I’m not much more than a mule-tender to the waste elves, so I was able to get her into one of the barrels. She’s old enough to know to keep quiet, anyway.”

  “Come with me, then. You can mind the girl, and I’ll keep the elves off,” Auron said.

  Naf chuckled. “The waste elves might not believe in the Curse of the Revengerog if they see our tracks leaving this place together. I’ve been with them only a few months, but know they hold to grudges like a dwarf with a nugget.”

  Naf set the girl atop Auron’s back. She cried, but so quietly, it made Auron feel for her days in hiding, confined in a barrel. Auron turned his neck to look at her, tears cleaning the wine from the sides of her nose.

  “Nula,” she said.

  Naf stroked her hair. “I got that anyway. It’s ‘pony’ in one of the eastern tongues. She thinks she’s going on a pony ride.”

  “Why do you trust me with her? Why wouldn’t I eat her as an afternoon snack?”

  “Because you’re agreeing to take her. There are a lot of legends about dragons among my people. They don’t strike the same terror into us as some other nations of the world. They can be dangerous, but they tell the truth.”

  “Even if that is true, I cannot remember making any such promise. What people are yours?”

  “We once were counted among the mighty. NooMoakh figures into our sagas, as a matter of fact.”

  Auron’s detailed memory supplied a name. “Together with a king named Tindairuss?”

  “Yes. Touching that someone else knows our fireside stories.”

  The girl began to bang her heels into Auron’s sides.

  “Walk her around a little. I’m going to load up my camel.”

  “Put something for her to eat in some bags. Waterskins, too. It’ll be days before I get over the mountains. She’ll need blankets, as well.”

  “And you thought you couldn’t care for a child.” Naf chuckled, watching her explore Auron’s pebbly skin with little hands. Auron’s skin flushed purple at her touch.

  “I’ll take her to the other side of the mountains and find some of her kind. NooMoahk can wait a little longer.”

  “Thank you, Auron.” Naf rolled dried meat and fruit into a blanket and fixed it so Hieba could sit on it. “This reminds me of some of the stories of Tindairuss and NooMoahk the Black.”

  “Then perhaps you are destined to be a king, as well. That silver you wear about your head is a bit like a crown.”

  “My people couldn’t have a king of the old blood even if they wanted one. We’re ruled by the Ghioz now, which is better than being raided by the Ironriders. But it’s hard to better oneself. The Ghioz keep a man in the station of his birth.”

  “I wish you luck in bettering yourself, then.”

  Auron watched Naf gather food for the camel whistling tunelessly all the while. Finally he nosed out a chest from under the collapsed tent, opened it, extracted a leather pouch, and hung it around his neck. Auron swung the girl on his tail, letting her feet splash in the pool as he did so. The delighted giggles from the child brought back memories of Mother. In all likelihood, this girl had no parents, too. He felt suddenly protective of her, as if she were a hatchling rather than just a human. He rasped the child across the back of her neck with his tongue, and she shrieked and wriggled then babbled to him.

  Auron heard a cough, and looked to see Naf standing there with the loaded camel on a lead. Naf pointed to a pile of supplies he had scavenged. The man winked at him and led his camel out of the canyon while the girl kicked her feet into the water.

  With Naf gone, the circling carrion birds swept into the canyon and alighted near the bodies, transformed from graceful fliers to ungainly, ugly walkers. The girl pointed to them and barked out a word.

  “You can’t speak Parl, can you?” Auron asked the girl. At the rumble of his voice in her ear, the girl ceased playing in the water and started to gabble in her own tongue, though whether it was a language of her own invention or not, Auron could not say. He set her down and swung the end of his tail gently before her. She grabbed on to the point Djer had fashioned, and then dropped it again.

  “Iss,” she said, definitively. Auron somehow knew she thought it was cold and hard, not like the rest of his skin. How would he know that?

  He forgot the sound of Naf whistling as he walked out of the canyon, forgot the vultures now dropping to the corpses piled in the dead-pit, forgot even the little girl who had dropped to her knees to look at his toes. He concentrated hard and tried to send a mind-picture of her sitting on his back. Nothing came back, but she jerked her head up and looked around. He continued to project the picture. Her face screwed up as she shut her eyes. Auron snorted. If Naf were just here, he would think her face worthy of a laugh.

  The picture faded from his brain, and the girl looked at him, little eyebrows together. She slowly got to her feet and climbed on his back, at the deliberate pace of one who is trying to do something just right. When she was perched atop the central arc in his long spine, she set her hands on her hips, as if to say, “Now what?”

  What was a journey toward the mountains. The little girl found it more comfortable to sit on the saddlebags over his rear legs and lay her head along his spine, the food-filled blanket cushioning her from the knobby ridge of his backbone. Auron looked back at her now and then and decided she was sleeping, perhaps the slight back-and-forth motion of his body as he walked reminded her of the cradles humans kept their children in. He slowed his pace and was careful to choose an easy path. The flat ground was beginning to give way to the first foothills of the reddish mountains. He found a watercourse that looked as if it led to a notch leading to a mountain’s shoulder. He could get a decent look-round from there.

  If NooMoahk claimed this part of the waste, he did not patrol it often. Auron smelled no hint of dragon, just more of the little rodents, and hawks above hunting them. The girl explored the contents of his saddlebags and pack, and ate and drank when it suited her, which was often. She went to pains to conceal herself behind a rock when she had to answer other needs, but giggled and hung off his back to watch when Auron paused to do the same. They spent their first night in a little notch at the base of the watercourse wall; Auron wrapped himself like a snake around her.

  The second day she talked less and ate more. They came to the shoulder of the mountain, and from it Auron saw valleys of scattered tall trees, with fernlike leaves sprouting from the top. Auron took her into the valley and found a trickle or two of water, and he set Hieba down to drink and bathe while he looked at the strange trees. They came in two varieties, a short kind with a wide base that narrowed before the fronds sprouted at the top, and a taller kind with a more slender trunk. Both were armored with thick growths of bark that stuck out like a phalanx of dwarves in a circle holding swords to their enemies. Vividly green lizards hunted bugs on the trunk, and Auron moved from tree to tree swallowing them as the girl washed herself. Farther above on the hills, he saw shaggy things that might have been skinny sheep or woolly-haired goats.

  He let the girl walk on the flatter, sandy floor of the valley, and she clung to his tail as he explored.

  Some prowling catlike thing on four paws growled at them from behind a rock. It stared at the girl but seemed wary of Auron. When he showed his teeth and extended the fans down from his crest to cover his earholes, it slunk away.

  They exchanged words rather than conversation. Hieba would touch things and announce their names in her tongue, and if it was easier than t
he word in Parl, he would use that. Otherwise he would teach her the Parl. She imitated some of his growls when he saw the hunting cat, and as an experiment, he tried a word or two of Drakine on her. That she found a terrific game—trying to make the sounds he produced—though she tired of it and went back to her native chattering. She chased some ground-running birds into a tangle of bushes and emerged with a red mouth and fingers. Auron startled for a moment and almost loosed his fire on the bushes, when he realized it was just the remainders of some berries she had found.

  The valley widened, and Auron found the remains of a settlement. Hominids of some sort must have lived in the valley once, but whether they were men, elf, dwarf, or blighter he could not tell from the old walls and roofless shells. They settled down for another night on a tiled floor sprouting red wildflowers from the accumulated dirt and cracks in the masonry.

  Hieba slept that night with her arms around the drake’s neck. Auron had to hide the dwarsaw out of her reach, and his neck ached from staying curved around her the whole night, but for some reason the discomfort seemed worth it.

  Chapter 16

  Auron and Hieba shared explorations, hunts, romps, and adventures that summer. They also shared a patois of their own making: a mixture of Parl, Hieba’s tongue, and Drakine.

  The explorations consisted of shallow caves. Auron found a crack or two that wind whistled out of, hinting at caverns beneath the mountains. One cave must have been a refuge at one time; they found hoops of iron that had stood around the remains of wood long since devoured by insects as well as tools and weapons rusted into unrecognizable shapes. They climbed trees to raid birds’ nests, first with the girl clinging to Auron’s neck and later with him following her. Her clothing began to disintegrate, and Auron was at a loss until he chewed a hole in a length of blanket, which she wore as a poncho. They made it in easy stages to the south face of the mountains, a well-watered expanse that looked out on forested hills as far as the eye could see, dipping into a valley that paralleled the mountains.