Dragon Strike

by E. E. Knight

  They heard some of the noise he made.

  Bowmen raised their weapons—no arrow could travel to his perch, but Naf had them lower their bows. Naf began to wave his arm, gesturing for AuRon to come down.

  He had to do some intricate flying in the narrows between the sheer sides of the needle-rocks in two careful dives back and forth.

  He landed in what he guessed to be an armed camp.

  There was an awful sulfur-and-oil smell in the air, the residue of the fire-skins dropped by the roc-riders.

  The fires, with dirt being heaped on them right and left, were being put out. AuRon smelled burned flesh and traced the odor to heaps of branches covering what must be bodies.

  There he was, old Naf, smiling in that gap-toothed way of his, everything in his scarred face vaguely askew, as though it had been dropped and put back together again. His hair and close-trimmed beard were well flecked with gray, a gray that sometimes verged on white. Quite a change in the brief span of years since they’d last met.

  His men looked half-animal, as men tended to look when long outdoors—shaggy, dirty and wolf-lean. Their tattered clothes were bound up with bits of leather cord, layers of rags thick about their legs and torsos. But all had well-kept weapons, sharp and bright with oil.

  Naf embraced him, managing to put both arms around his neck. A few of the men pointed at his skin or claws and muttered.

  “AuRon! I do believe you’ve grown. But what on earth happened to your tail? It’s quite a runt.”

  “A long story, Naf.”

  “My men are suspicious. They’ve had nothing good from dragons of late.” He turned and picked one out. “Ho! Dominof, remember AuRon, who visited the Silver Guard in the pass? He has returned.”

  “Aye. Right on the heels of those blasted birds. Strange timing.”

  “I would never have seen you if it wasn’t for those birds,” AuRon said.

  “Tell me—I know nothing of those giant carrion hunters. Are they as intelligent as dragons? How do they keep finding us? Each time we shift camp, they find us again within six-day.”

  “I do not know those birds, but they strike me as no smarter than ordinary birds. I’ve never talked with one.”

  “What are you doing in these hills?”

  “I was on my way south and became confused. I saw those riders and thought they could put me on the proper course.”

  “Those riders are from our old friends in Ghioz.”

  “The Queen. Yes, I’ve seen them over her capital.”

  Naf lowered his eyes. “I don’t envy you the sights.”

  “They call you Naf the Dome-burner.”

  “I didn’t start out as one. Far from it. I was as loyal to the Queen as any Ghioz-born subject. No, all the disloyalty came from her, old friend.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Naf sat down and rubbed his thighs. “Oh, a battle started up with one of the Hypatian thanes. A fellow named Capoedia. There were so many refugees from the dragonraids piling up on his lands—Ghioz wasn’t letting any more through the passes, you see—that he sent his men against the pass guardians and won, at least long enough to get those wretches off his lands. That kind of thing had to be answered, of course, and answered hard, so I led my men in a raid on Thane Capoedia. I’d learned a good bit about moving through woods and such quietly when I rode with the Red Guard on the eastern borders of Ghioz in those timberlands. So we took him by surprise and won soundly.

  “The Queen rewarded me with the title ‘governor of the Dairuss.’ Well, if there ever was a worse governor than me, I’d like to meet and strike hands. I cut a fine figure.”

  AuRon wondered why more humans didn’t use masks in the manner of the Queen. They made it so much clearer. Hominids didn’t always speak their minds fully and expected others to follow them in expression and gesture, which could be as misleading as a dog’s tail, which often wagged even as the other end snarled.

  “The Queen said Hieba and my daughter must come and grow up at her court and attend the schools in Ghioz, the best in the world, so that she could follow in my place with better mind than I ever could hope to have, and like the saddle-tramp who’s had some luck with his bow and spear I am, I thankfully accepted.”

  “You’re no fool, Naf.”

  “Needless to say, I did not squeeze and bleed my people as thoroughly as she would have liked. I’ve seen too many hangings in my life, for in Ghioz crimes of property and crimes of blood are held equal, and I commuted the sentences of small thieves of property to terms building roads or digging drainage ditches. I freed families who’d lost their fathers in Ghioz’s battles from taxation, thinking blood more precious than gold, and held court under those famous domes as I thought it was supposed to be held, with all free to speak and seek justice from their ruler without fear that their words would be turned against them.”

  “I think many would like such a poor ruler as Naf,” AuRon said, wondering how Naf would deal with dragons who stuffed themselves with entire herds of sheep.

  “I suppose I was warned. The Queen visited me, her mask turning from smiles to frowns, more frequently to frowns as the questioning progressed, and told me Dairuss was no longer the jewel of her provinces but a rather shoddy bit of brass. In desperation I hired some dwarves to open old mines in the mountains, but only succeeded in emptying my treasury still further, for the mines failed.

  “Of course the Queen replaced me. She sent me a message saying she’d grown very fond of my daughter and the company of Hieba and would, with great liberality on her part, see to it that both were comfortable and Nissa was educated in the manner she’d promised, perhaps to one day rule and do a better job than her father. Oh, AuRon . . . the Queen’s counselor who brought that message said that I must do all I could to help the new governor, the awful Hischhein, succeed. Hischhein sneered, a little, as he surveyed the governor’s house and took inventory of the cookpots and lamps.”

  Naf looked off to the northwest, as though he could see through mountains. “Were that all he wanted was a fine house with a commanding view! Hischhein immediately grabbed my people by throat and hair and shook them so hard that he might profit by dropped boots, coats, and shirts. And to think I’d once counted him as a friend!

  “My people didn’t stand for it, and started murdering Hischhein’s tax collectors and townheelers. It was they who started burning the domes of Ghioz, and did it in my name. They rampaged through the streets of even the capital, pouring out of their quarters like a mud-slide, and burned the dome there, and then I knew the life of my wife and child would be forfeit. Was my governorship just a year ago? No, a little more. The messenger came in the spring, just as soon as the roads cleared.

  “I did know how to fight. That’s one lesson life has taught me, and taught me well. I organized such elements of my old Red and Silver Guard as loved Dairuss more than their quarterly pay and we fought, for one glorious summer. But what could Dairuss do against the might of Ghioz? Those torch-wielding mobs, chanting my name as they burned the dome, what did they know of the resources of a whole Empire, which would shortly be flung over them as you might snuff out a fire under a wet blanket?

  “I was not ignorant of the situation. I tried to call for help from the Hypatians. The Hypatians must know of the Queen’s designs against them. Has she not built a web of allies all around their lands, from the Ironriders in the north to the Usuthu in the south? Dairuss had many advantages: a people already opposed to the Ghioz, a choice of passes they could use to throw forces against the flanks of any Ghioz moving up from the south, control of the mightiest of rivers, friendly terms with the dwarves and their Iron Road, giving them a clear path into the heart of the Ghioz Empire for their legendary Indomitables. But my pleas met with words rather than swords, diplomats instead of arrows. They sent a general of theirs, a learned elvish fellow named Sandwash and a dwarf engineer named Ermet, but they seemed more interested in observing Ghioz destroy my poor people than offering assistance.

>   “I’ll never forget the sight of the Ghioz armies, advancing in three columns, glittering golden serpents. That’s the Ghioz for you, an army of gold, the only god they worship, the only truth they recognize. While I tried to slow them, for I couldn’t hope to win a victory, the Ironriders struck in the rear. I’m told, and this is the one grim joy I take from the debacle to my people, that the Ironriders accidentally quartered Hischhein when he came out of hiding and presented himself to them as the Queen’s governor. I suspect the Ironriders saw their chance for a bit of sport and took it.

  “Now my people are worse off than before I governed them. The old Ghioz governor who stood in place before me is returned, and his punishments seem light, I suppose, after the destruction the Ironriders loosed.

  “But for all the catastrophes, all my mistakes, I still have, each week, two or three sons of Dairuss appear in this camp, even if their shoes have fallen to ribbons while crossing the mountains and their horses are gaunt as scarecrows. They call me King Naf in the Mountains and speak of this bandit-camp as a freeman’s hold. Ha! Oh, the world is a joke, AuRon! Life is a joke.”

  Naf laughed, no longer the hearty and controlled racket of the booming, friendly sound AuRon had known as a drake but a sound that made him think of a goose noisily dying.

  “So, what brings you south? Seeking an old friend, or did you try to claim your title, promised long ago?”

  “I’m on a mission of diplomacy for the Red Queen.”

  “You’ve found your sense of humor at last, I see.”

  AuRon blinked. “No, friend, I am serious.”

  “If she seeks my surrender—”

  “Your name hardly came up in our converse. She sends me as ambassador to some dragons living in a great cave south of here. If her information is as faulty as her map, I expect I’ll find a score of dragons huddling cold in a mushroom-cave, eating their own eggs.”

  “Interesting. That necklace, then, is hers? The chain looks like Ghioz artistry, though it’s not the Queen’s braiding on the chain, as you’d expect of a royal emissary.”

  “She did give it to me. I wonder about this crystal, though. It reminds me of something.”

  “Odd cut to it. You might find it convenient for scraping out your earhole.”

  “So you’ve never seen anything like it, though you were once high among the Ghioz?”

  “No. I suppose fashions come and go. Perhaps white crystal is the new ruby. There was a time when rubies were all the rage among the Ghioz.”

  “Did the rubies—did the Ghioz jewelers know how to put light into their gems? This glows even in utter darkness. Faintly, but it does glow. I’ve known only one other stone that held such clear white light, a massive crystal NooMoahk kept in his library.”

  “That must have brought some titleor a hefty bounty. There’s many a rich Ghioz dowager who’d see her brow glamoured by a stone that shines with its own light. Happy was the captain who found that!”

  AuRon wondered how much of the burden DharSii carried was paid for with the crystal. Of course it couldn’t be all gold, not even a dragon could fly with such a burden. Had he taken a piece of it for himself?

  Or perhaps only a few tiny fragments had been shaved off, such as he wore. Was there some power in the crystal he didn’t know? Why hadn’t NooMoahk warned him? Even his failing mind had its lucid spells, and so important a subject would have come up.

  “I wonder, Naf, if the stone wasn’t the whole purpose of the raid, the war with the blighters there trumped up.”

  “Perhaps. You know, AuRon, I think you should carry out this commission for the Queen. A suspicious mind like yours might go far.”

  “As far from the Red Queen as my wings will carry me, once I have my gold. I shall have the dwarves of the Chartered Company account it for me so I may portion it out yearly.”

  Naf went all still. AuRon seemed to recall that he would always quiet his body when he became serious and thoughtful. “Will you return to the capital to collect?”

  “Yes. To that mountain-face they work upon.”

  “I have another reason—no, reason is the wrong word. Hope. I have another hope, AuRon. It is that Hieba and Nissa still live. I must think and act as though they are dead, but Hieba and you were close. Let my hope live in your heart. Return to the Queen, your message delivered, and see if you can have news of her. It would be the most natural thing for you to ask. She knows that you and I spoke, about the threat of those dragon-riders, and Hieba was present when we did so.”

  “I will see what I can find out,” AuRon said.

  “Do not be afraid to return with bad news. It is better to know, I think. If I knew, I could cease thinking about it, or know exactly how to think about it. We shall look for you, and signal. A dragon with a stunted tail is easy to mark as he passes overhead. Look for us at dawn and dusk, so that we might signal you with fire if we are concealed. Two equal lines of flame meeting, vertical and horizontal, a dwarf-cross.”

  He looked so miserable that AuRon would have promised him anything to bring the usual gap-toothed grin back. “Very well. Perhaps you can help me with this Ghioz map. There’s a waterfall I don’t seem to be able to find . . .”

  With Naf’s advice AuRon set a better course and found the waterfall. From there he flew out of the mountains and into some high, dry plains inhabited by hominids—men, by the look of them, sun-dark and bronze-adorned. Though the cattle looked tempting, he avoided them and instead devoted himself to hunting the tiny jumping deer that lived in thornbrush between high outcroppings of rock that held fat, and tasty, rats.

  He found a divided rockpile with a great sloping slab hung suspended between the two, thick with marks of men or blighters. While the iconography struck him as unique and interesting, he was nearing his destination and had no time for a lingering appraisal.

  He hurried south into land that looked like it had once been sea-bottom. The ground was foul and salty and held only patches of desperate-looking green vegetation like stringy cactus that existed only to make white desert butterflies happy in its hanging blossoms.

  Soon he found the great canyon at the bottom of his map. There could be no mistaking what must have once been a great watercourse but now was just a series of dry mudholes flaked like burned skin. He found some toads buried deep in the mud, but they were sour and dry and not worth the digging.

  The canyon plunged into the earth, first in a series of breaks and then at last into darkness. He flew more cautiously here, wondering how such a land could ever support dragons, with the nearest edibles a long day’s dry flight away, and not much even at that.

  His eyes adjusted to the dark and he flew at a pace he could almost match on the ground, wary, wondering what kind of reception he might meet.

  And so he came to the bridge.

  Of course he wondered what dragons would need with a bridge. The sides of the canyon were striped with holds that even a young hatchling might use as a hominid used a ladder.

  It was a superior piece of craft as he understood such things, looking almost as fine as a dwarf-built in his estimation. It passed from rock-column to rock-column, joining two bits of tunnel, fixed here to cavern roof, there to a column, and in another place held up by arcs of metal and twisted cable.

  “Land, stranger,” a dragonelle’s voice called from the center of the span. AuRon marked sort of a mini-cave in the cavern ceiling. She would have an easy time pouring her flame on him if she chose.

  A drakka emerged from the east end of the bridge and opened her sii in an odd gesture. AuRon guessed it meant they wanted him to land there.

  So he did. Two drakka and a dragonelle stared at him from a wide, well-dug tunnel.

  “Do not even you know him, Angalia?” one of the drakka asked the dragonelle.

  She blinked. “There is grit in my eyes, I cannot be sure. Oh, I am ill. This bridge and these dry holes will be the death of me.”

  “For a moment, by the skin, I thought he was one of those awful mons
ter-bats, but he’s dragon-sized,” the one in the cavern roof-hole called. “Who is he? Is there a gray in the Aerial Host?”

  “I’ve not seen one, but I’ve been long away from the Lavadome,” the one AuRon thought to be Angalia said. “It seems I’m always indispensable in some unhealthy clime.”

  The drakka eyed each other. The look they exchanged reminded him of Jizara and Wistala sharing a private joke at his expense. His hearts ached at the memory.

  AuRon spoke his long-rehearsed speech, not really knowing the manners of the dragons here, so he fell back on old phraseology that he’d at times heard from NooMoahk. “My name is AuRon son of AuRel. I come from Ghioz, bearing a message in friendship from the Queen. If you could arrange for me to reach your Lavadome so that I may deliver her words, I will hereafter call you friend.”

  The dragonelles blinked at him, frozen, reminding him of nothing so much as startled monkeys he’d seen when he’d been a wingless hunter stalking the jungle south of Uldam.

  “Some friend,” one of the drakka muttered. “A travel-thinned gray with a stumpy tail who talks like a drunk Wyrr. The Red Queen can keep him.”

  Chapter 14

  Wistala’s introduction to the Lavadome left her thrilled yet mazed, speechless despite words of admiration at its beauties fighting to get out.

  After the tall cavern of the river ring, griffaran were wheeling in and out of shafts of light from cracks in the surface as cold waters carried their secrets beneath. They swam across, hearts pounding in the cold, the pain half exquisite. She climbed out of the water feeling more alive than she ever had before in her life.

  Ayafeeia, three dragonelles, and three drakka accompanied her from the other end of the Star Tunnel and through a maze of twists, turns, and ancient chambers.

  She thought she’d seen beauty enough to remember in the bright colors of the far-off griffaran.

  Then they passed through another tunnel on the other side of the ring and entered the Lavadome.

  After, she sensed that the others had been watching her to see her reaction.