by E. E. Knight
AuRon felt alone and a little ashamed. Though he was around dragons for the first time since NooMoahk’s death, he was burdened by fear and secrecy. Before he has lived speaking the truth, dealing cleanly with those around him; here he chose even a false name to mask his identity. Father would not have approved. A dragon was his voice, roaring fair challenge to foes, speaking plainly to friends, singing of brave deeds to his mate. If his current path wasn’t an act of treachery, then nothing was. How could he put this experience in his song? Would it be worse to put it in, or compound the lies by leaving it out?
In the other ear, however, there was the pampering. The only thing AuRon could compare it to was his days with the dwarves and their caravan. The handlers plied him with more food than he could ever eat, of a quality and variety he had never before experienced: lamb, goat, mutton, beef, red fish, white fish, various sorts of shelled creatures from the sea—such a delight to crack apart and sample!—cheeses, breads rich with butter and honey, even wine and ale. This Wyrmmaster had learned that dragons could appreciate wine. AuRon grew to look forward to a nightly bottle at night’s meal, corked and sealed with some mysterious elvish waxen imprint, as the final relaxing touch before he settled into a dreamless sleep. There were also lumps of a strange metal-mineral blend that the dragons called ore and longed for like horses did bits of fruit, but for which AuRon had no appetite.
The only unsettling part of his existence was the Dragonguard, the most dangerous element of this wizard’s system. This corps of men stood watch in little groups at tunnel mouths and cave junctions. Varl told him they were recruited from the Varvar coast, towering giants of muscle and beard dressed in patterned dragon scale—though AuRon wondered why they seemed to prefer green, the color of females, as the dominant hue in their garb. They helped handle the younger, pre-trial dragons still being trained. Eliam, bearer of the Dragonblade, was their chief despite his youth. There were more of them around the breeding stock than the easier-to-handle fighting stock. When they wanted a dragon’s attention, say to clear a passageway for a cart, they blew a peeping whistle from behind their helmet and pointed, a practice AuRon found detestable.
But they didn’t attempt to put a collar on him. The discipline of the Dragonguard was enough to keep order, as AuRon was soon to learn.
He had a formal introduction at court, a rare thing for even a dragon of breeding stock. Or so Varl said when he led AuRon into the Highhall.
It was a wooden lodge, with doors the size of those on a barn and balconies projecting from walls and roof, set high on the side of the fjord leading to the port. There was no landing beneath, only a waterfall cut right through the Highhall’s foundations before plunging a good six dragon-lengths into the sea below. Visitors had to land at the port, then use sturdy mountain ponies to make the climb. Rune-stitched pillars greeted AuRon as he and Varl finished their long walk from the tower cliff to the fjord gap. As they climbed the outer stone staircase to the hall, Varl offered him some advice.
“Just agree with what the Wyrmmaster says. ‘Yes, Supremacy’ is best. There are embassies from the nations of men at court now—they’re about to leave before winter comes. The Wyrmmaster wants them impressed. You speak well—everyone has noticed it.”
“I speak well, but it’s best if I just say, ‘Yes, Supremacy’? One needn’t be a privy councilor to manage that.”
Varl opened the great doors to let AuRon go through; though he was slender enough, his midjoints grazed the doorframe as he passed inside.
“NooShoahk, you get any bigger, and we’ll have to build a larger hall,” the Wyrmmaster said from the cavernous interior. Lines of reinforcing beams stretched from angled roof to angled roof, well joined, and two iron chandeliers hung from each. Lining the hall were alcoves, empty chairs sitting in most, and at the far end a lectern that could be reached by climbing a short staircase. Humans of various size and coloring stood at the far end by tables laden with food and drink.
In the balcony above, stout men with cocked crossbows waited, their eyes shifting from AuRon to the Wyrmmaster.
“My brothers, this is our latest ally, a dragon out of the south named NooShoahk. He’s a flier the likes of which we’ve never seen here on the Ice Isle. We’re proud to have him join our cause.”
The Wyrmmaster introduced AuRon to the barbarously titled men: there was Svak the Thunderarm and Gulland Longsound, and Khon Gi-Gesh and many others that AuRon lost track of as they approached and were introduced, all important men in the barbarian tribes they represented. They patted AuRon experimentally, or shifted their heads so they could peer under his lips at his fangs. The thing he liked least about mixing with humans was being poked and prodded. Varl read dragons better than most, and moved to his side and made sure they did not outrage him further. Someone offered him a bone joint, waving it before him to get him to open his mouth, but AuRon ignored it.
“NooShoahk, I’m having you meet these men for a reason,” the Wyrmmaster said after the barbarian gave up trying to feed him. Varl put his bulk between AuRon and the Wyrmmaster, and the assembly moved off to the food and drink. “I’ve of a mind to use you to send messages to our allies. I’ve used dragons before, but most require many rest stops and hunting breaks. You, on the other hand, I believe to be twice as fast as a scaled dragon, probably a good deal faster than that if the scaled dragon is carrying a rider. You know your maps, you know your stars—otherwise, you could never have found this isle.”
“The fire mountain brought me in. Otherwise, I might still be hunting for it.”
“My beacon? Yes, clever, isn’t it? But it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Some wizard’s work, then?”
“Perhaps. It was here when I first landed, a lifetime ago, seeking to speak to a pair of dragons in the very cave you call home. Holdovers from an earlier age, like your renowned linelord NooMoahk. I’ve no idea who built the beacon, but I could determine how it works. That mountain expels flammable gas from far beneath the earth. Someone installed some sort of valve; the pressure builds, and at a certain point it releases it in a rush. The force of the outburst of gas triggers a spark, using the same principles as lightning, and you get that explosion. Brilliant.”
The Wyrmmaster spoke lower. “What is your vision, AuRon?”
“My what?”
“Follow me outside.”
Varl trailed along, and a pair of women stood up at a motion from the Wyrmmaster, both in the traditional red cloaks of the men of the Jagged Isles. One sang, filling the cavernous hall, as the other danced from man to man, her body moving elusively under a cloak, which she opened at times to reveal her unclothed flesh beneath. With his guests occupied, the Wyrmmaster closed the great doors behind him, took up a walking stick, and led AuRon to a rocky ledge just above the waterfall.
“A good spot for thinking,” he said, settling his wide frame into a thronelike chair carved from a tree stump. He rested his hands on the wolf-heads carved into each arm of the chair. “Are we what you expected, NooShoahk?”
“I expected more camps of war, more ships. This is a great island, but it seems deserted. Even of dragons.”
“This island makes a poor base for conducting a war: distance, the weather, all the dangerous shallows around it. Were you to go to Juutfod, there you’d see otherwise. The dragon ships of the Varvar set out from there, and take wind down the coast in their raids. Or the floating ring, something we seized years ago from a group of sea elves. More of the fighting dragons live there than here.”
“Then why choose this place?”
“This is where the real work is, in forging and continuing the alliance between dragons and men. Dragons can fight, and men can conduct campaigns without me telling them where or when to move. I’d no doubt do a worse job than many of these warlords.”
AuRon would not have chosen the word alliance. “Yes. Why did you ask about my vision?”
“You came here for a reason.”
“To fight elves and dwarves,
as I said. I learned of your war through some blighters in the East.”
“I don’t kill for the sake of killing, NooShoahk. This war serves a larger purpose.”
The Wyrmmaster looked out at the green walls of the fjord, a steel-colored sky matching the choppy sea beneath. They both smelled the keen wind.
“Long ago, man and dragon were inseparable. Did you know that? It’s fallen out of our history somehow, both races have forgotten their joint glory. But there was a time of peace, of learning, of prosperity. Man served dragon by keeping his herds and guarding his lairs; dragons served man by acting as his eyes and ears in the sky, or bearing messages faster than any horse or ship could hope to travel.”
“I’d heard of such a time, but I thought it was the blighters who fed us in exchange for our service.”
The Wrymmaster scowled. “Lies, lies spread by elvish historians bound in books made by the dwarves. It is a deep-laid plot, NooShoahk. The failed lines know man, if left unmolested, will take his place at the head of races, and build a world beyond their imaginings. They are jealous of the ingenuity of man, of his speed and adaptability. So they start disputes between nations of men, pitting brother against brother while the dwarves make money selling swords and the elves barter for plunder to furnish their lives of luxury. It is disgusting, every time I read a history of some war or other, to see the threads of the elvish plots. Such waste. Terrible, terrible waste.”
The Wrymmaster sank into thought for a moment, and AuRon opened his mouth, but he was preempted.
“I know what you are thinking, young skyking. You wonder how this was revealed to me, instead of some other. We have to go back to my childhood. I’d devoted my life to learning about dragons since I found an old book in my village, some tome brought back from a war by a man who couldn’t read, a war against a vicious band of elf-brigands. He was tearing pages out one at a time and using them to start fires in the wind. I opened it, and saw beautiful drawings of dragons. I saved the book. In truth, I stole the book, yes, stole it and learned its secrets. This took me some time. It was in Elvish, of course, to keep human eyes from discovering the truth within.”
AuRon suspected he had heard of the author of the book—the tome of Islebreadth and Hazeleye.
“Of course I had to learn Elvish well enough so I could read it. This was not easy, as the dwarves who owned my family’s land demanded the lion’s share of each harvest, and a book, let alone a tutor, cost dearly in silver. My father could hardly afford to keep us in clothes, let alone pay for education. I ran away to town, the Varvar port of Juutfod, knowing I could never further myself at home. I fell in with the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, a shipbuilder and trades-man once upon a time, who had been ruined by a conspiracy between the shipwrights of the sea elves and a band of dwarves. We shared the gutter. His name was Praskall, and he could read many languages, and he helped me with the book. It was from him that I first learned of the workings of elf and dwarf to keep man as but a crude tool in their hands. Anyway, I deciphered the book.
“This Ilsebreadth had first spoken to two dragons on some mysterious island in the north that only the sea elves could find. I set out to find this island to the north. I did, and sailed up this very fjord with a crew of four. We found ruins, pieces of an older civilization, and went looking for their cave.
“But the dragons also found us. They killed my crew; the pair had a nest of hatchlings to feed. They captured me, as well, and brought me back alive to keep for a later meal. These were an ancient pair keeping the island to themselves and remembering times past. They knew some of the tongues of men, and I spoke to them. I reminded them of long ago, and promised them that if they let me go, I would in a few months give them back ten times my weight in fresh meat. They accepted the bargain, and so began the first step on the road to reestablishing the rightful relationship between dragon and man. I raised goats, not very successfully at first, but the dragons gave me more time, and soon I had flocks of sheep for them. On sleepless nights, I would sit on this spot, whittling this chair, and think about what was, and what will be again. Man’s destiny, man’s First Destiny, was to be the lord of the surface of the planet, just as dragon’s destiny is to rule the sky.”
The Wyrmmaster showed no sign of tiring. As he spoke, he grew more intense.
“Eventually I convinced the dragons to let me go and get more men, so the herds could be increased. I gathered together a band of far-seeing men. Men with a vision for a better life. They laughed at us. We had criminals among us, a few drunkards, and the women who joined us, well, they weren’t welcome in any of the respected homes of Juutfod. But I led them here, and you see all around you what we built.
“The real turning point came when I delivered a herd of cattle to the cavern. They had a clutch, and the eggs were just beginning to stir. I lingered, slaughtering and salting down the meat so it would last for their clutch. When the eggs hatched, there were two males, and the usual fight commenced. A golden was the victor; he won out over a sickly looking red, tearing him badly across the neck. I asked for the skin to make a cuirass, and the dragons agreed. Little did they know, as I hurried away from the eggs, that the red still lived.”
The cloaked girl’s dance must have been pleasing to the crowd; there was a lusty hurrah from inside the lodge.
“That was thirty-seven years ago, NooShoahk. Thirty-seven long years, of thought and work. I’m called a wizard because I know something others don’t. If you get something when it is young enough, you can train it to accept anything. The red lived, only just, and learned from me. I named him Revanan, taught him to speak Parl. Most of all, obey. When the time came, I saw it breathe fire, and taught it to use that. I sent out bounties on healthy female hatchlings.”
And so my family died, Auron thought. “What happened to the pair who gave you the red?”
“The dragons of the cave grew old, infertile. They had grown used to being fed by man and forgotten how to hunt. I wanted their caves for myself, so I cut off the flow of food. Cruel? Perhaps, but I had young breeding pairs that needed the space, and dragons have been known to drive their parents out of the cave before this. They grew so weak, they could barely move. They feared to come out of the cave, for Revanan made frightful noises outside.
“Eventually Revanan went in after them. He was wounded in the fight, so that he’d never fly again, but it did not matter, he’d done the most important service in giving me the ancient caverns. I moved the few females I’d acquired in to the old nesting cavern, expanded what I could, and made do with the rest. Now let me show you what has been built, to the lasting glory of man and dragon. Come, Varl, we’ll walk back to the caverns. No, I don’t need my heavy coat. The exercise will warm me, and I’ll use good NooShoahk here as a windbreak.”
“I’m sorry I can’t take you to the stalls of the females, but it’s another dragon’s turn,” the Wyrmmaster said, panting a little as they went up the trail to the tower.
“Shadowstalk’s, sir. NooShoahk is next,” Varl said, helping the old man up the trail.
AuRon looked out at the docks. The boats of the dignitaries were being made ready for sea.
“That’s the one thing I can’t manage. If you unaltered males come together among the females, there’s blood on the walls. Have you met Starlight yet? Until you arrived, he was the fastest of our dragons, and as devoted a member of the breeding stock as I’ve known.”
They entered the dragon caves by another passage, one large enough for AuRon to enter afoot, but not fly into. It meandered back and forth, showing signs of recent work. Men with shoring timber on their shoulders made way for the trio. AuRon heard the pounding of picks in time to blighter song, and knew work was going on down one of the shafts.
They descended a set of uneven stairs, the air thick with dragon odors. AuRon went down slowly and uncomfortably, keeping his legs tucked well under. The passage widened again and they passed two members of the Dragonguard, who nodded their metal-shrouded heads as th
e Wyrmmaster passed.
“Look now, NooShoahk, for in a few years you won’t fit,” the Wyrmmaster said.
AuRon heard a raucous noise, and the passage turned a corner and widened. Light and air came down from somewhere above, the light coming in dispersed by domes of white-colored glass and the air pushed by a clattering thing set against the wall that sounded like a broken spinning wheel. Most of the noise came from hatchlings, wrestling and chasing in the center of the room. Older ones, on the verge of drakehood, napped on pallets set against the wall, ignoring the squawks of the younger generation. Members of the Dragonguard and other men moved among them, breaking up serious fights or sitting on the floor telling stories with puppets or carved figures. It was glorious chaos.
“We have another hall for the maturing drakes. They spend most of their time outdoors, exercising, cooperating in hunts, learning to obey orders. But this is where the sense of community takes form. Let me show you where the real magic is.”
The Wyrmmaster led on through some curtains. AuRon felt the room get warmer. Thick mats covered the floor, and AuRon smelled dragon eggs. This room was darker than the others, lit only by a pair of coal fires at either end. Men in spotless green robes sat at either end, tending the fire and listening for taps at the cask-size eggs.
“They wear green for a reason. Hatchlings react more quickly to something that is green, like their mother’s scales.”
“Why don’t you just use females?”
“It’s important that the first thing they see out of the egg is human. They bond better that way. The mothers won’t break off fights between males, and it’s vital for us to do that if we’re to have enough dragons. A dragon will accept whatever it first sees as its kind. The writer of that book called it impression, the great weakness of dragons.”
AuRon fought to keep his foua inside. The application of Hazeleye’s book sickened him: hatchlings emerging out of the egg, not to revel in soothing thoughts of Mother, but to imprint upon humans to better obey orders. He looked around so the Wyrmmaster could not read the fire in his eyes. “How many do you have?” AuRon asked. “Dragons of all types, that is.”