by E. E. Knight
Poor thralls. What must it be like to be rowed across the river ring in chains, nothing but toil to look forward to, even if it was under the splendid burning streaks above?
The waters of the river ring sagged, bordered by muck and sand. Must be the end of the dry season in the Upper World. He remembered it as a chaotic time during his service in Anaea. Men always went a little crazy then, perhaps from heat and thirst.
The Firemaid in charge of the captives bowed. “The prisoners from the deepest Star Tunnel holes. We finally found their lair. ’Twas in a grotto too tight for dragons. Your sister countermined, hiring dwarves.”
The dwarves must have thought it a fine deal, getting paid to help destroy their bitterest enemies.
What the Lavadome was to dragons, the Star Tunnel was to the demen in this part of the Lower World, or so he’d been told. It had been the work of years clearing it, and they’d lost dozens of dragons and even more dragonelles. Every time they thought they had won it, the demen opened some new portal and attacked from an unexpected quarter.
“This is but a token of the tally,” the Firemaid said. “Their leaders. The others follow, perhaps a thousand.”
A thousand! He heard Sreeksrack choke back a hungry yelp. A vast number in the Lower World, which was often as inhospitable as bare desert or cold mountaintop. Of course, the Star Tunnel had many exits to the surface. A few in his retinue licked their chops. There would probably be wounded and sick to eat. Every hill had a few clan recipes for deman. Their thin leg-flesh practically melted in butter.
Paskinix, no wonder you are willing to deal at last. It seems I have much of your army. In the darkest days of his youth in the snake-haunted bat caves he’d learned that the best way to kill a snake was to crush its head. No matter how powerful the coils of the body, without the head it was nothing but a meal.
The Empire had taken the demen body—and the head was no doubt wondering what to do with itself. At dreadful cost, but dragonkind now held as much of the Lower World as the great wizard Anklamere ever had. They wouldn’t have to worry about raids on the trade lines, and drakka and drakes would be freed up from the watch-posts.
The Upper World, soft and ripe in the sun as the sweet fruits brought down for the thralls and livestock, beckoned to his imagination.
He walked along the line of prisoners. Disarmed, sullen in defeat, they were marked as a fierce warrior race only by their carapace decor. They had bits of bone, dragonteeth, what looked like dwarf-skull and blighter-fang dug into or piercing the organic platework about their shoulders. Some had painted their battlescars, others filled an empty ocular cavity or torn-out ear with a baby griffaran beak. But appearances could be deceiving. These were war-chieftains who’d fought fire-breathing dragons a hundred times their weight to a standstill for years.
Seemed a shame to put such specimens to work herding cattle or shoveling dragon-waste.
Now would be the time to announce a grand victory feast. NoSohoth eyed him, subtly smacking his lips. Deman organmeat—especially the liver and kidneys—sharpened the eyesight and kept one clearheaded.
The Copper turned to face his procession and cleared his throat, feeling sluggish. They wouldn’t like the speech, but the sooner it was done with, the better. Then he could find a comfortable spot on the riverbank to sleep.
His first word turned into a shocked breath. Pairs of eyes widened and he heard a few gasps. Before he knew what had happened, he felt a flutter of feathers across his back and a deman-scream cut the riverbank.
Two griffaran rose into the air, one with the head and arm of a deman in its claws, the other gripping a leg. A jagged shard of crystal, long and slightly curved, spun as it fell. It broke into ugly barbs as it struck the ground just behind his bad sii.
Above, the deman parted, messily.
Other griffaran of the bodyguard swooped down, batting at the demen with their wings, knocking them back into the mud and among the boats.
It occurred to him that from behind, his withered leg left a rather attractive target just under the shoulder joint. A clear path to his heart for just such a blade.
He’d have to see that what was left of the weapon was given to Rayg for study. Rayg, a scientific-minded thrall of rare gifts, and dwarf-trained besides, might find it interesting, especially since it had somehow survived a prisoner search.
Cosseted in the Imperial Rock, he’d forgotten lessons learned as a hatchling and drake. Poor old NeStirrath would have had a few choice words about that. Anger, mostly at himself, brought him round to face his enemies, and he felt the foua in his firebladder pulse, wanting out in the rush of nervous energy.
He spat, and an oily film splattered into the mud. Old injury in a fight with egg-raiding demen had left his firebladder missing some element or other that caused his foua to ignite. He could spit up a tiny flaming gob easily enough, but regular dragonflame was as beyond him as aerial acrobatics were.
This one had come within a few steps of breaking a crystal point into his chest-heart. Fate, it seemed, didn’t want him fighting demen.
Embarrassment at his misfire calmed his anger better than any soothsaying.
“Not quite defeated yet, I see,” he said to the demen in their darktongue. “I’m sure Paskinix will strike a fine bargain to get you back.” He turned his head—held high and out of leaping reach—back toward his assembly.
“Odd, though,” he said, keeping to the darktongue, “that Paskinix should not be taken along with his chieftains. I would hope that if the Firemaids were giving their lives in defense of the final refuge in the Lavadome I would be with them at the last.”
“If I might offer—” Sreeksrack began.
“No, you may not,” the Copper said, preventing him from naming a sum that might impress even NoSohoth. “These aren’t some scale-seeking thieves sneaking down the Wind Tunnel. They’re the toughest warriors the Empire has ever been matched against.”
He felt woozy and thick-tongued. Better get the words out while he still could.
“I speak now as Tyr. The demen are to be conveyed to Imperial Rock and placed next to it in the west hollow. Just shift the horseflesh elsewhere. I want them to march, not drag chains, mind you, with the youngest hatchlings lining the way so that they may see examples of bravery and valor, paying their respects as dragons of the Empire should. Whether they become thralls or not—well, let’s see what Paskinix says about getting them back. Now, you must excuse me.”
He dashed off toward a riverbank rockpile quickly enough that the bodyguard circling above had to swoop to catch up. There he brought up the remains of his breakfast before collapsing.
“Tell Rayg—poisoned,” he managed, as the alarmed griffaran fluttered above, before blackness swallowed him.
Chapter 4
The Copper woke, looked around at the rich tapestries and mats covering the cavern walls. Gold and silver thread multiplied the lamplight. The soothing aroma of oliban made itself at home in his nostrils. He welcomed its aromatic visit.
In the shadows of the ceiling, two pairs of red eyes glinted and blinked.
“Nilrasha?” he rasped, feeling for her mind.
“She’s holding court in the gardens,” a human voice said. “Would you like some water?”
The Copper blinked the mist out of his eyes and saw Rayg Sablecloak. Despite his hominid birth, Rayg had as fine a mind as any of the Anklenes. Six years ago Rayg had married his body-servant, a lively but almost silent girl named Rhea. The Sablecloak family lived in the sunlight near the Southexit, and the Copper gave him leave to be with them whenever Rayg could be spared from his projects—a rare occurrence.
The Copper kept meaning to free him entirely, but it seemed there was always one more task that only Rayg could accomplish.
Rayg desired seeing his family settled out of the Lavadome in wealth and comfort. Now that his children were old enough to be helpful, one of them usually attended him in his workshop beneath the griffaran nesting areas, which employed a fe
w skilled blighters and a strange dwarf who kept his beard and skull shaved. When the Copper had inquired, Rayg explained that the dwarf had suffered some irredeemable disgrace and labored so that he might still send a decent income home in the form of dragonscale.
“How did I get back here?”
“You were in a delirium. You don’t remember, then?”
The Copper searched his memory. He remembered viewing the demen, then bringing his breakfast up. Then there was some dream about a trek across Bant with lions watching him the whole way, and swimming, swimming in water that alternated hot and cold.
He heard dragon-voices out beyond the beading that separated his sleeping-chamber from the rest of his chambers—the hygiene annex with its trickle and paired pools and his private gallery looking out on the Lavadome and the little trophy alley that led up to the formal court hall. They were cramped quarters, probably not even filling the egg shelf in the cave he’d been born into, but it was easier to relax with comforting stone close around and tight corners where enemies could not mass and might be surprised.
“How long have I been with fever?”
“Three lightings,” Rayg said, referring to the glow of refracted sunlight or moonlight through the apex of the Lavadome. Probably about a day and a night in the Upper World. While dragons in the Upper World adapted to a sun-based schedule easily enough, in the Lavadome they alternated long-sleep, long-active, short-sleep, short-active, mixing according to humor and necessity. The Anklenes kept to a system based on the changing of the griffaran guard every twelve dwarf-hours.
“Send NoSohoth in,” the Copper said, lifting his head. He felt tired, but remarkably clearheaded. “I believe I hear him in the trophy-hall.”
NoSohoth, on entering, sprinkled another sii of quartz-like oliban on the brazier and tested the aroma with his nose. With a satisfied snort he bowed his way into the sleeping chamber.
“My Tyr—”
“Is awake,” the Copper said, forestalling expressions of joy at his recovery. He sensed a tension in NoSohoth, even with the relaxing aroma so thick in the air you could almost see it. “What’s the matter? Is Nilrasha ill?”
“No, my Tyr. But many are.”
“A plague?”
“Food poisoning,” Rayg said. “It’s this year’s new kern.”
Kern was the most beneficial when it was freshest, so most dragon larders and storehouses sent the older stuff off to be cattle-feed or thrall-gruel when a new batch came in. Mothers of hatchlings mixed it up with blood, or rolled organmeats in ground kern and flamed the mash so that their progeny might grow long and strong.
“Bad kern?” Careless of that CuPinnatax. He’d appointed him Upholder of Anaea because he seemed an intelligent—though idle—dragon. CuPinnatax’s grandsire FeLissarath had been the Upholder there for many years under the old Tyr. The Copper had served there before events in the Lavadome changed the entire course of his life.
“Not to smell or taste or sight, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said, but then he’d put CuPinnatax forward for the Upholdership.
“I put it under a dwarf-lens,” Rayg said. For a human who could speak Drakine credibly, he cared little for courtly niceties. “There’s some kind of blight on it, a brownish spore-like organism. It doesn’t appear to make the kern itself less wholesome, or interfere with it in any way I could detect, but once introduced into the digestion, it thrives and putrates. Cattle and sheep and pigs it affects hardly at all; they grow gassy and distended, but that seems to pass in a day. It sickens and slays chickens, and with dragons it appears to be taking the young and infirm.”
“Take?” the Copper said. “How many?”
NoSohoth seemed unaccountably impressed with a new tapestry in the sleeping chamber. The Copper saw him deftly add more oliban to the brazier with his far saa.
“It is bad, Tyr,” Rayg said. Even a dragon could read his expression.
The Copper’s brain felt divided, flying in two directions. One part of him rushed backwards, trying to remember absolutely everything FeLissarath had taught him about kern. It was a crop dependent only on ample sunshine and rain as it ripened. Anaea, with its rich soil and high-altitude climate, was ideal in both, though once in a while a bad year or too much rain left the kern either undersized or rotting. FeLissarath had never mentioned any kind of blight that sickened dragons.
“Prepare yourself, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said. “Most of the hatchlings are seriously sick. Some sii-score have already died—that we know of. Smaller drakes and drakka are also dying, but in lesser numbers. Of the aged dragons, it appears to depend on their appetite. Unhappily, the healthiest and heartiest eaters are falling victim.”
“Where is my mate?”
“She just returned from visiting hills that have lost hatchlings. She goes out again directly.”
Nilrasha might have her faults and enjoy the privileges of being Queen more than its duties, but she could be relied on in a crisis. Still, the sooner he appeared the better.
“With most of the dragons, it seems to have affected them to some extent as it did you. They bring their dinner up, or sluice it out the other end, and suffer from a fever.”
The Copper’s head cleared. “No one’s to eat another mouthful of kern. NoSohoth, I want every healthy dragon in the Rock out in the hills helping the parents of hatchlings. Sick parents can’t nurse their young. Rayg, what might help?”
“I’m no physiker, especially of dragons,” Rayg said. “Fluids usually help, whatever the malady or injury.”
“That will just speed their passing. Unconscious dragons will choke,” the Copper rasped. Rayg loved to build tunnels out of air.
“Of course, if you apply by the mouth.”
“How else are they supposed to get liquids?” NoSohoth asked, rolling his eyes.
“I saw one of my masters keep a cow with a broken jaw alive with injections through the . . . tailvent, you’d say.”
“Can you manage this, and teach NoFhyriticus the Gray and a few body-thralls?”
“I can make nozzles easily enough. Hollow bones will do. Cow or sheep bladders would work for the liquid—for adult dragons you’d need whole ox or pig skins. The liquid—hmmm.” Rayg muttered a few words in a language the Copper suspected was Dwarvish. Then he returned to Drakine. “Nothing fancy there. Water with the smallest portion of salt would do. Join them with gut. I can do all the work in your kitchens.”
“Make at least eight. One for the Rock, seven for the other hills.”
Rayg gave a curt bow. Was he losing a little of his hair? The Copper hated to think of such a valuable thrall aging. He’d have to make sure Rayg spent his declining years in some congenial Uphold with his family.
Assuming he could be spared.
“Am I excused, then?” Rayg asked.
“Of course. NoSohoth, aid him. If Mother Kyrithia herself is needed to wash out bladders, see that she does it.”
Mother Kyrithia ran the Imperial Line’s kitchens. She predated old Tyr FeHazathant and was indulged and bowed to more than the Copper. But she could make the stringiest old rock-lizard taste like the tenderest cut of veal.
There his mind went again, flying in two directions.
NoSohoth lingered. “And the old?”
“We’ll do what we can for them, but it’s the hatchlings we must see to.”
“One thing, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said, glancing at the ceiling where the bats hung.
“Yes?”
NoSohoth put his head close alongside the Copper’s and dropped his voice to a whisper. “As it stands now, this is a tragedy. Grieve with the families over their dead, and you will have their love and respect; the love between you and the hills of the Lavadome will be refreshed and renewed as it was in the days of your victory over the Dragonblade and the hag-riddens. Send this human in with his contraptions and his potions, and no doubt some hatchlings will die in any case. Suddenly you are responsible for their deaths. The physician’s dilemma.”
NoSohoth was always couns
eling the safety of inaction.
The Copper had received only one piece of wisdom from his parents once pushed off the shelf by the Gray Rat, a suggestion that he try to overcome. Somehow that had stuck with him more than all the lessons he’d learned in the Drakwatch caves, or the deep knowledge of the Anklenes. He would rather try to overcome this wretched blight than be a dignified picture of grief.
“Let them hate. Even a handful of hatchlings saved will count for more in the long flight. Our numbers are few enough.”
“My Tyr—”
“Do your best, NoSohoth. Perhaps I’ll put you in charge of the kern trade from now on, if you don’t mind one more burden.”
NoSohoth’s griff fluttered in excitement. “Speak not of burdens. The Empire and my Tyr have all I have to give. Virtue in the performance of one’s duties—”
“Find some reliable, scientifically minded Anklene to examine the kern-trains on arrival. Oh, and have Rayg show this blight to the physician.” The Copper had to cut NoSohoth off, or he’d be talking until a new coat of scales came in.
The thought of some gold quietly changing sii as a dragon was selected for the position might run NoSohoth’s mind down happier paths.
“A wise decision, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said.
“Now go help Rayg in the kitchens, would you? He’ll need some intelligent thralls who are used to working close to dragons. Start with the body-thralls.”
“Yes, my Tyr.”
“Tell my mate I’ll be with her shortly.”
“Yes, my Tyr.”
After NoSohoth left, the Copper looked up at the red eyes in the shadows above.
“Wail. Gnash. You’ve a long flight ahead of you.”
The bats dropped and glided down, landing on each wing close to the shoulder. They patted and nuzzled his ridge of collar muscle in a manner some might find affectionate, if the observer didn’t know they were searching for a vein.
The Copper had met a family of overlarge cave-bats as a hatchling. They had a taste for blood, and loved dragonblood above all things. Though it made them a little tipsy and insensible, it also had caused them to grow into bats of enormous proportions.