by E. E. Knight
Hischhein looked at Naf in blank astonishment. “The Dairuss are ignorant of politics. I am surprised that you, commander of our foremost forces, would even think such thoughts, leave alone give voice to them. Those words, which I will endeavor to forget, could cost you your command.”
AuRon saw that Naf’s eyes were alight with battle. “Hischhein, the Dairuss aren’t as ignorant of the affairs at court as you think. Chamberlains tell stories more interesting than who has a certain green-eyed smoke-dancer brought to his suite at night.”
“How-how-how dare—,” Hischhein sputtered.
Naf lunged. The explosive energy in coiled body flashed out, turning over the furred chairs, and he pushed Hischhein across the low wall and over the edge of the cliff. At the last moment, he grabbed the Ghioz’s ankles.
“Naf, to attack the Ghioz is death!” Hieba shouted, running to him.
AuRon stretched his neck so it hung over the abyss, and saw the interesting sight of Hischhein thrashing like a fish on a line—enmeshed in his own mountain cloak—with his back against the cliff wall. Naf’s muscles bulged as he held the man’s feet at his chest. Naf ignored Hieba’s attempts to aid Hischhein.
“The queen will sell us out, am I right? She plots with this ambassador to join the war. She’ll sell us as slaves and open the falls to the blighters!”
“No! No! Help, men of the Guard, seize him!”
Naf released his grip, and Hischhein screamed as he dropped, but Naf grabbed his feet again.
“The next drop will be farther, and every man will swear you had a seizure and fell. Tell the truth, and my guides will see you over the mountain to the borders of Hypat. You have my oath. Do you witness it, Evfan?”
“I do hear your oath.”
“No, you are wrong. The queen is true to her duty. What put such thoughts into your head? Put me before this witness who slanders the queen and let me defend her.”
“My forearms ache to let you go.”
Hischhein ceased his struggle. “Then drop me and be damned as a murderer by the gods you hold dear, Naf. I’ll die with a clear conscience, and you’ll die with my murder on your soul.”
Naf took a deep breath and pulled the Ghioz up. Hischhein’s face was red and flushed as Naf let him breathe.
“Sir, forgive his madness,” Hieba pleaded, on her knees before Hischhein. She kissed his feet in desperation, and AuRon felt his sii claws slide within their sheaths.
Naf kneeled and bowed his head. “You have my apologies, Counselor, but I had to be sure. The Silver Guard will stand true to the queen, now that we know the queen is true to us. But I’d heard that she’s become intimate with this ambassador, and has had him brought to her bedchamber in secret.”
Hischhein’s eyes widened. “I am deep in court secrets, and I have not heard this.”
“No one knows more secrets than a washerwoman. The same one who does the queen’s sheets attends to my bedclothes. She gets all the gossip from the chambermaids. I pay her well.”
“You’ve more layers than an onion, Commander. I shouldn’t want you as an enemy.”
AuRon curled himself on the ledge like a great hunting cat of southern jungles. “Naf, I wait to hear how I fit into this.”
“That was my job, dragon,” Hischhein said. “I want you to know I speak for the queen on this matter. She will offer you mountain, forest, and plainland on our southern borders to live as you will, with the soldiers of Dairuss seeing that you are not disturbed, if you will help us in our need.”
“The promises of man rarely outlast a generation, Counselor,” AuRon said.
“Our queen rules not just by word, but by law, as well. She obeys the laws laid down by previous rulers and their Council. Were we to break this, all would be weakened. Besides, a dragon on our southern borders will discourage invasion from the barbarians farther south.”
“Would that you were dwarves! They get to the point with half the words.”
“Very well. May I call you AuRon?”
“Yes,” AuRon said.
“Hazeleye has told us something of your past. Our enemy is the one that ordered your family hunted out of the mountains, that the eggs and young of your parents might be taken. I do not know what sort of filial loyalty dragons have, but beyond that, he has done likewise to other dragons on the other side of the Inland Ocean, or so Hazeleye tells us. We know very little of this Isle of Ice, save that it is a foggy place surrounded by treacherous rocks, and no strangers get outside the port.”
“They know this not only from me, but from others, as well,” Hazeleye said. “None have been beyond the port at the glacier bay.”
“You need a dragon to fly over it, and spy out his land?”
Hischhein looked uncomfortable. “Much more than that. We’d like you to join the other dragons under the wizard. Serve in this flying army of his. And when you get the opportunity, kill him.”
Chapter 21
AuRon’s blood coursed hot with anger. He saw the people, speaking to him as through red gauze.
“So I am to be an assassin?” AuRon asked. “I’ve learned to hate that word. An assassin is a sneak. Am I to worm my way into the cave of his enemy to kill him as he sleeps?”
“He’s made slaves of your brethren, AuRon,” Hieba said. “It’s not just elves and dwarves dying—dragons fall in this war, too. He has them under some spell.”
“This war will lay waste to ancient lands and nations,” Hazeleye said. “Barbarians will fill the void. A civilization built by elves, men, and dwarves that goes back further than any in living memory will be gone, with savages squatting in the doorways of monuments whose making they could never comprehend.”
“No more writing, no more music—,” Hieba began.
“My friends, I came here thinking you were in danger. Take my advice. Ally yourself with this wizard. If you cannot defeat him, you might as well spare yourselves extinction. Adapt to the new world. That is what I am trying to do.”
“I see the legendary selfishness of dragons is not exaggerated,” Hischhein said. “Even when it comes to their own people.”
“What about the favor you owe me, AuRon?” Hazeleye said.
“I’ve heard you out without roasting you. That favor is paid. Count yourself lucky that after you freed me, I did not dedicate my life to hunting down those who slaughtered my parents and sisters.”
“Do you know both sisters are dead, AuRon?” Hazeleye asked.
“Jizara stayed by Mother’s side. You know as well as I that they both died. Wistala made it out of the cave with me, and I heard of her death from her slayer, the Dragonblade.”
“I knew the man. He was skilled, but a braggart when it came to telling scores. She may still live.”
AuRon felt his hearts stop for a moment. He took a deep breath, trying to fight hope.
Hazeleye let that sink in for a moment before continuing. “AuRon, I made a fortune, now lost again, capturing dragons for this wizard. He paid triple, triple his bounty for healthy female hatchlings. I was not the only hunter. There is a possibility that your Wistala may be on his island even now, as his thrall. If I were to guess where in the wide world she was, if she still lives, it would be there.”
Deep pain drove a spike through AuRon, further angering him. He wanted to roar and stomp, lose the hurt awakened in him in an orgy of death. But he fought down the emotions and hugged his body to the mountainside. The cool rock under his chin soothed him.
“I must think,” AuRon said. “Leave me to listen to the wind for a while.”
The hominids filed inside, Hieba under Naf’s arm. AuRon felt a seep of jealousy, but the girl belonged with other humans. Naf turned her for the door, but at the last second she broke away from his grip and ran to AuRon. She flung her arms about his neck.
“Father,” she said. “Whatever you do, wherever you go, my heart is there, too. I’ll always remember you.”
“Berrysweet, I’m not going anywhere just yet. I’ve still to reconcile mind a
nd heart.”
AuRon looked north for a long stretch of silent hours. Naf came out and offered him food, but he had eaten well the previous day and was not hungry as yet. He watched the shadows change as the sun crossed over to the west, watching them lengthen and then dissolve into the night. The stars came out. AuRon wandered in memory, and circled back again and again to something Mother had said. Once you’ve fixed on your star, you’ll know where you are for the rest of your life.
He looked at the star, the star the Bowing Dragon pointed to. His star.
It led north.
AuRon hovered outside the castle, sailing on the mountain winds, rather proud of himself, for a heavier dragon could not manage the trick without much beating of the wings.
“Naf! Naf!” he called through the shuttered windows.
He heard curtains being pulled aside and Naf opened the wind-shutters. A hint of stove-light framed his powerful shoulders and Hieba stood behind, clinging to him.
“Have you settled your mind?” Naf asked, almost shouting.
“I’ll go north. What you have in mind may be impossible. I may not even meet this wizard. I can’t see him trusting some dragon out of the wild. Covering myself in blood and offal won’t do it this time.”
“Even information would be valuable. If we knew ahead of time where and when the dragons were coming, we would do better.”
“I will do all I can. Keep well, Naf, for your sake and Hieba’s.”
Naf took Hieba’s hand. “I will, friend.”
“Hieba, thank you for coming back to me.”
AuRon didn’t wait for a reply, but folded his wings and shot down the mountainside like a diving hawk. He spread his wings again at the bottom of the mountain, feeling the pressure-change, and swooped off to the north. The Bowing Dragon showed him the way.
AuRon followed the Falnges and saw the familiar landing of Wallander. The towers were gone, perhaps they had not returned yet from their yearly run. There were only three lights in all the town’s space, and AuRon smelled hardly a hint of dwarf. He rested farther downstream, out of sight of the settlement.
If the blighters meant to descend through the mountain gap, the Dwarves of the Diadem stood in their path like a stopper blocking a bottle’s mouth. The falls of the Falnges marked the only break in the mountains east of Hypat, and the Delvings controlled the falls. Putting himself in the seat of his enemy, AuRon wondered if this wizard knew the importance of the iron trail linking the top and the bottom of the falls. If he did, he would certainly strike the dwarves to open the way for the eastern forces now gathering. AuRon had to warn the dwarves; he owed Djer and the others that much.
The next day he saw the familiar mountaintops of his birth range. An hour’s northward flight, and he’d be able to land on the cave ledge from which he and Wistala had gotten their first look at the Upper World. But he had no time for sightseeing in the Iwensi gap.
There was little river traffic. It seemed strange that in the intervening years the river had grown emptier of boats. The ones he did see pulled for the bank as fast as they could at his appearance, and even they were not cargo ships but smaller vessels taking traffic from one side to the other.
The landing at the top of the iron trail was even emptier. AuRon spotted a cluster of dwarves sheltering under some trees near the wharf despite the dwarves’ attempt to conceal themselves. He saw arrow points balanced on fingers holding bows. He tipped his body and glided away out of range. A single sweeping look at the landing told him all he needed to know: broken ships, a smashed dock, carts knocked off their iron rails all said that the dragons had been there.
He flew over the first of the falls, a series of white steps bordered by sandy washes. Sparkling mist threw a rainbow. AuRon saw the shattered front of a river-ship resting alongside the bank. The wood had not yet reached the sun-drained color of driftwood. The ship must have died recently. AuRon floated through the deepening canyon, flying over fall after fall. A crossbow bolt flew down from one of the cliffs as he rode the swirling air currents above a roaring waterfall, but it fell well short. The river turned in a sweeping curve west, slowing and widening before the last fall, and AuRon finally spotted the rocky peak of the Delvings framed by the setting sun.
Though the carven tower was in ruins, the flag of the Dwarves of the Chartered Company fluttered on a makeshift staff above the smashed masonry. The Delvings still lived.
AuRon flew to the lower landing and circled on the confused air coming up from the boiling water of the last falls. A pair of dead wraxapods—giant bones still held together by a few strips of sinew and crawling with crows—lay in the mud near the landing. A wraxapod calf grazed upwind from the bodies in an open field.
There had been fighting at the Delvings. The balconies were blackened and blasted. Fine woodwork had been reduced to char; metal rings rattled on rods in the wind where curtains had once stood. AuRon saw no bodies of dwarf or dragon, so some must still remain within the Delvings. AuRon dropped from the sky, sliding right and left on the air currents and keeping out of crossbow range. The sun shone into the openings on the mountainside, but the galleries were as empty as the eyeholes in a skull. Perhaps—
A sapling-length shaft shot up from the ruins, whistling as its forged feathers cut the air. AuRon twisted in the sky, and the oversize spear punched through his wing, still rising. AuRon flapped upward and watched the missile at last tumble and plunge into the river. The dwarves must have mighty war-machines in one of the caverns.
AuRon would get nowhere with the dwarves in the Delvings; he could shout all he wanted, but from a safe distance he could not be heard over the roar of the falls. He was reluctant to try the door he had entered with Djer years ago. It was undoubtedly guarded by further war-machines. He looked over at the field with the wraxapod calf. The dwarves would not leave a valuable animal unattended.
Sure enough, a pair of dwarves was pulling at a chain about the calf’s elephant-height neck. AuRon turned and flapped over to the field. The herders dropped their leads and ran for the trees.
“I mean you no harm,” AuRon called. “I’m an old friend of the Diadem—I can prove it.”
The dwarves did not stop for conversation until they were well under the trees. “We’ll listen to no more ultimatums, dragon!” a voice shouted from the undergrowth. It echoed oddly. The dwarf was using some kind of speaking-trumpet that made the sound hard to place. “This is not a war of our starting, but unless you’re here to beg for peace through our mercy, you’re wasting your time.”
“I’ve nothing to do with the others. I seek Djer, a Partner in the Chartered Company. I bear his signet.”
“Djer? He’s in no shape to talk, dragon. The work of your kind.”
AuRon felt a stab, a pain fiercer than the wound in his wing. “May I alight in safety?”
“We’ll do nothing to harm you. What’s left of our warriors are all at the Delvings.”
AuRon landed, frightening the wraxapod calf so that it lumbered away trailing its chain leads, bleating in fear. AuRon sniffed, looked, and listened before approaching the trees where the voice had come from.
“I’ve a ring belonging to Djer with me.”
“Leave it and go to the other side of the field.”
AuRon obeyed, his tail lashing in impatience. He placed the ring on a stump in the field and strode away. Djer was a brave dwarf; it would be like him to be at the forefront of a battle.
The dwarf, a beardless youngster, crept out of the trees, face enclosed by thick layers of wrapped cloth examining first the meadow, then the sky. He snatched up the ring and then ran back into the trees.
Afternoon had turned to twilight before another dwarf returned, a dwarf in chain mail with his beard cut short so it would not become entangled in his armor.
“By the Golden Tree, it is the Gray Dragon,” the dwarf muttered to the wraxapod herder. The dwarf raised his mask. He had the staring look of one who had seen much fighting.
“Dragon, I’
ve spent so much time cursing your kind, I’ve forgotten your name. But I’ve seen you before, among the towers and in battle. I was there when you stopped the charge of the Ironriders with your fire.”
“AuRon is the name, and thank you for coming.”
“Altran is mine, once on the staff of Djer, may his vest sprout gold.”
“May I see him?”
“Best if you don’t. He was hurt in the last battle. He needs quiet.”
“To heal?”
“To die, the physikers say.”
AuRon’s claws closed on the wet earth, tearing soil and worms. “Take me to him. If you love your master, if you remember me in the fight by the river, you’ll do as I ask.”
Altran dragged grimy fingernails across what was left of his beard. “I will. My charter means nothing to me anymore, with the great Caravan gone. They’ve laid him out with the others beyond hope. Come, the burial cave is not far.” Altran sent the herder ahead and led AuRon into the forest.
“What happened to the Caravan?”
“Last year we were on the steppe. The same story as everywhere: six dragons came with the horsemen this time, bearing that cursed banner of the figure in the golden circle again. They burned the towers. The survivors went west with Djer. The Ironriders began to gather. He wouldn’t stop. He drove us, wouldn’t give a full night’s rest even, but we made Wallander before the snow flew. Thinner, but alive.”
“How are matters at the Delvings?”
“The Partners built it sound. The dragons have burned out the upper galleries, and not a dowel still remains on the balconies, but no dragon has made it past the first inner door. We’ve got all the water we need, and food for a year or more if it comes to that.”
“Has it been just dragons, or have men attacked with them?”
“No men, no blighters—yet. The Underroad is held by our best dwarves; if they do come in force, we have a hundred ton of rock to close Deep Passage. I’m for moving to the mountains or across. The Delvings are strong, but to me it just means we die a year from now, like rats in a watched hole.”