by E. E. Knight
“The thralls in my hill are restive. Suppose they should murder my mate while I am away?”
“I’ll return to find not a scrap of silver. Who will guard my hoard if not I?”
The Copper thought of his grandmother’s rant, on the last day she drew breath, when she alone hurled herself against the Dragonblade in a court of cowards. She’d called them a lot of backscratchers, and she’d been right.
“Ghioz is three days of hard flight,” an aged dragon said, the swirls of the old Aerial Host from the early days of Tyr FeHazathant faint on his sagging wings. “If we come at speed we will arrive exhausted, hardly able to stay in the air. If we take our time she will have warning and assemble those roc-riders.”
“I don’t propose a flight, until the end.”
“Then how shall we get there?” the old dragon asked.
“When the peak first glows tomorrow, meet me at the north river ring beneath the nests of the griffaran. It shall be a trip that will go into many a lifesong, I promise.”
There were grumblings and complaints, with not a few saying some variation of “you have to live through it to sing about it.”
Had such an assortment ever left the Lavadome by the river ring?
The Copper doubted it. It would have been in the battle stories he’d learned in the Drakwatch.
They’d wrecked flatbed dwarf carts and filled nets with the surprisingly buoyant mushrooms that were normally ground into cattle-feed. There were driftwood logs dried, bound together, and formed into rafts.
They’d made traces out of leather, chain, and rope. The dragons of the Aerial Host would drag the rafts and boats behind in the manner of horses pulling carts. But this time the horses would ride. Cattle and goats rode in the improvised armada, ready provision for eating along the journey. The riders of the Aerial Host sat along with the livestock in the boats, their armor and weapons tied down rather than worn in case the boat upset in rough water. From everything he heard of the Nor’flow, the ride would be treacherous.
Even unhappier than the most miserable, lowing cow was the griffaran guard. All but a bare minimum of griffaran stood perched on logs and gripping canoes in talons so tight-set that the sawdust dribbled from beneath their talons.
Aiy-Yip and his feathered warriors, usually as placid as statues until they exploded into fury, were white-eyed and losing feathers as they bobbed toward the river tunnel.
“Hate-hate-hate water!” Aiy-Yip said as his boat bounced in the current. “Bathing one thing, but this is yaaak! like drowning!”
Nilrasha watched them depart.
Her mate would have his own way. A Tyr shouldn’t leave the Lavadome to go into battle—it just wasn’t done. A tour of the Upholds, yes, but to lead dragons into battle . . .
If he died, how long would she last as Queen?
She climbed back up from the riverbank and into the tunnel to the Lavadome. She passed an alcove where a Firemaid should be standing watch—the Lavadome was emptying of dragons faster than they could breed.
Taking wing, she was back at the top of Imperial Rock before the smell of her mate had left her nostrils. She called for Ayafeeia and NoSohoth.
While she waited for them to arrive, her body-thralls attended her. She envied the thralls and their simple lives. Follow orders, do your job well, please the dragon you belong to. No doubt, no anxiety, transitory passions and heartbreaks forgotten in an hour.
If she lost RuGaard she would live with the pain for a thousand years.
“The Tyr told me to act according to my best judgment, Ayafeeia. My judgment rarely counsels caution.”
“How have circumstances changed, my Queen?”
“Simplicity itself. As Queen, I am now making decisions for the Lavadome, and the Queen wishes to lead her Firemaids into battle. Maidmother, prepare your daughters for a flight to Hypat!”
Paskinix showed them where to leave the river.
It wasn’t so much a landing as a gap in the ceiling, ringed with the shells of long-dead water-creatures. The demen had some difficulty with ropes and so on until LaDibar suggested that they just ride up one by one, clinging to the crests of the bigger dragons.
The griffaran still had a terrible time of it. They didn’t like walking and the tunnels were far too small for flight. The water-carved tunnels improved by the demen gave way to the old dwarf-mines.
In the end, the Copper convinced his dragons to drag the griffaran, each riding on a dragon-tail with beak hooked on the trailing edge of folded dragonwing.
So they went, the bats foremost, echo-sounding off the walls as they flew back and forth between the demen, who came next, and the darkness ahead. Then the dragons, with the Copper in front keeping in touch with the demen. And finally, what was left of the livestock, being driven by the men of the Aerial Host.
There was hard work at blockages. The dwarves, in their ancient fights with the demen, had walled up parts of the mines. While the demen had long since broken through these, they’d opened them only wide enough for demen to crawl through, not dragons. The demen, men, and the smaller drakes sweated and cursed in three different tongues doing the hard labor to break down the iron-reinforced masonry and open the passages further.
“I came to fight, not to dig. This is thrall-work,” HeBellereth complained.
“Would you rather dig or fight roc-riders?” LaDibar asked.
Chapter 23
Natasatch had a grueling flight south. She’d not had AuRon’s recent exercise in distance flying, and though she struggled with a dragon’s heart and AuRon did their journey with frequent stops for food and rest, she arrived at Naf’s warrior camp utterly exhausted, her skin loose and sagging and her eyes glazed with fatigue.
“I’ve . . . never . . . flown . . . such distances,” she said.
“A few days on a good diet is what you need,” AuRon said.
Naf misunderstood the reason for her exhaustion and thought she was dying for want of metal. He sent word through the camp that every piece of scrap and old coin or trade token be gathered at once.
The soldiers made them presents of food and the gathered metal. Old belt buckles and scabbard caps, broken tools and worn-down knives, as well as a smattering of coin lay in a heap the size of Natasatch’s head.
“I thank you,” she said in her rough Parl.
She ate two roast pigs, seasoned and softened with the simmering spices popular in these foothills. When AuRon saw his mate sleeping comfortably at last, breathing easy and with a full belly, he joined Naf and two of his most trusted captains over mugs of spruce ale.
Naf told them how all Ghioz seemed to be coursing through Hypatia with only the briefest show of resistance.
What forces Hypatia had not engaged in the border thanedoms hurried toward their rallying points along the coast or the Falnges River.
“All the more reason to try my plan,” AuRon said.
Naf shook his head. “Impossible.”
“Impossible why?” AuRon asked.
“No body of armed men could get into the city. The gates are too well guarded. The only large groups of men who move together are Ghioz soldiers, and we could never imitate them. The others are slaves, who wear the barest kinds of clothing. There would be nowhere to hide our arms.”
“Suppose you weren’t armed.”
“A hundred loinclothed men against the Citadel Guard? It couldn’t be done.”
“Suppose I could provide you with arms and armor.”
“Our own? My men’s own bows and blades?”
“Yes.”
“We would have a chance. Just a chance. Could I count on your help at the citadel gate?”
“Of course.”
“It could be for nothing. Hieba is probably dead.”
“Then we will avenge ourselves upon the Queen.”
“And kill one of her doubles as you die.”
“I’ve thought much about that,” AuRon said. “I cannot help but think there is some deep mystery to the Queen. The be
ing I’ve spoken to is no double, no matter how well trained. I spoke to the Queen herself. I’m sure of it. So she is either speaking through her doubles, as she did with me in the Lavadome, or . . .”
“Or what?” one of Naf’s captains asked.
“Or there is a deeper enigma still to the Red Queen.”
Paskinix sent a messenger-bat back, with a report that there’d been “a fight and a capture” in one of the upper chambers while the dragons dined and waited for the drakes and demen to clear a blockage.
The Copper went to see the results himself.
Three dead demen lay together, facedown with their arms linked according to the custom of the hominids.
The chamber the bat led him to must have been near the surface. Old bones, flat bits of dried hide, thin as leaf and held together by a coat of hair and mud, droppings, and mushrooms and lichens feeding on the rest dirtied the floor of what looked like a dwarven sleep-hall, judging from the many notches in the wall. He’d seen old dwarven cells. When away from their homes they liked to sleep in little chambers reminiscent of the partitions in honeycombs.
The Copper found himself face-to-face with his old friend NiVom.
The demen had multiple lines around his neck, his limbs, climbing hooks through his wings and buried painfully into his spine and tail.
“Tell me one thing. How does she know of our movements?”
“She didn’t know dragons were coming, just demen, otherwise I suspect you’d have met more than just myself and my mate.”
“Your—mate?”
“Imfamnia. Your mate-sister.”
“You would mate with such a traitor to her kind?” the Copper asked.
“Says a dragon who had a tooth in the destruction of his family.”
The Copper did not want to have that conversation again. “Where’s your mate now?”
“She ran as soon as the demen attacked. Valor in combat is not one of her charms.”
“May we bleed him, my lord?” one of the demen asked, sharpening his knife against the cavern floor.
The Copper sniffed at his old Drakwatch leader’s wounds. “And you were always so bright, NiVom.”
He heard rumblings of the Jade Queen from the Aerial Host. Imfamnia would pass into history through some very creatively-worded songs centered around her alleged deeds with various temporary mates.
“I’d forgotten how quietly demen could move rock,” NiVom said. “If you’re going to kill me, do it. I have no heart for talking.”
“Kill you? NiVom, I’ll be happy to rescue you. Join us and help us bring down the Red Queen.”
“It’s impossible. She’ll see you coming. She’s always one step ahead. I wonder if she didn’t tell Imfamnia to come with me to this dirty hole and then flee at the first spine-scrape of the attack. I’m beginning to think she wanted me dead.”
“All the more reason to join us.”
“What are your conditions?”
“Only this. Once we are out of this hole and in the air, travel through Ghioz and warn the people that the vengeance of dragons is about to be visited upon them. Any who wish to surrender should mark their homes and barns and watercraft in some manner. Is there a common fabric color? Something bright we can see from the air, by daylight or good moonlight?”
NiVom considered the matter. “Better than that. The Ghioz are great consumers of white paint. They use it on all the inner walls of their buildings.”
“Paint? Oh, yes, of course, that color-splash. Yes, white paint will do. Have them mark the rooftop or at least the roofline to indicate their surrender.”
“Brave of you. I see why they made you Tyr. I might just fly away.”
“The NiVom who fought with me in Bant kept his word. If that dragon is gone, I’ll see to it that the renegade hiding in his body is killed as well.”
The Copper looked at him, hard, and NiVom gave a brief bow.
“I—I will see to it, my Tyr.”
He gave orders to the demen to let him go.
The demen led the Aerial Host to the surface. The Copper offered them their freedom when they saw naked daylight.
“You are welcome to any caves north of the Star Tunnel,” he said to Paskinix and the rest. “Or you may continue to live close to the river ring, but you must accept the Tyr’s word in the Tyr’s tunnel.”
“If the Tyr keeps word to us, he’ll find Paskinix a firm ally,” Paskinix said.
With that they departed back for the deeps.
The dragons waited until dusk.
NiVom left first. The Copper and HeBellereth and Aiy-Yip watched him fly off
“Oh, to spread my wings!” Aiy-Yip squawked.
“Tonight,” the Copper said.
“Why did you let him go?” HeBellereth said. “He may go to the Queen.”
“I don’t think so,” the Copper replied. “Watch behind him.”
A pair of roc-riders dropped out of the clouds and followed NiVom, all three fliers oddly dark against the night sky.
The Copper nodded. “As soon as we met him, I guessed the Red Queen would be having him watched. Had we killed him, at least one of that patrol would have lingered aboveground. They had Imfamnia to follow and now NiVom. I hope that is as many as they had waiting above these lands.”
“My Tyr is clever,” HeBellereth said.
“We shall see just how clever. If the Red Queen felt or saw a few-score demen coming, imagine what the approach of this multitude of dragons is to her. We may be in for a fight worthy of many a lifesong.”
“All the more reason to finish what’s left of the livestock, then,” HeBellereth said, and Aiy-Yip ruffled his feathers in agreement.
The dragons were in the sunlight. They’d need it to navigate their way to the Queen’s City—the mountains where it lay were a purple smear on the horizon.
He’d released Paskinix and his warriors, granting him this exit on the surface for as long as dragons breathed in the Lavadome for their use as a sun-mine (which had finally been explained to him—it simply meant an area used to grow crops, preferably fruit).
The dragons filed up and out of the old dwarfworks. They rested on a grassy hill somewhere at the north end of the rolling hills that started in the horsedowns.
“Now is the moment, dragons,” he said to the assembly.
“We were driven from Silverhigh and scattered. Then we were tempted to the Lavadome and enslaved. For generations we have hidden in fear of armies and assassins, egg-thieves and scale-gatherers. Our bones have been sold for medicines and our hearts have been burned for sacrifice to the totems of idiotic hominid gods.
“This is the last morning of dragonkind as we know it. Perhaps it will be a terrible last morning, a deathsong, a judgment where we match courage and brain and sinew against numberless adversaries who would reckon our destruction a boon.
“Or perhaps this is a new beginning for dragons, where we cease to let the world shape our destiny. If we see victory this day, we will become the shapers of the world and take our place in the sun, with generosity to our friends such as the griffaran and ferocity to our enemies.”
The Copper saw some of the dragons glancing about them, unsettled by the light and space of the Upper World, or perhaps fearful of roc-riders screaming from the clouds.
“I am sorry to have to ask this of my dragons, but I need a few dragons to remain here and guard this entrance to the Lower World. If matters go ill for us over Ghioz, what is left will probably be pursued on the way back. A few fresh dragons, firebladders full and ready to fight, may save many lives. No one will think the worse of any who answer my request to guard this tunnel-mouth.”
At that the doubtful eyes brightened. Four gave their names as willing to be the rearguard.
“Whichever way this next day goes, I am proud to have my share of it. Proud of our brothers, the griffaran. Proud to name myself as one who flew with HeBellereth, with CoTathanagar and NoFhyriticus and SiHazathant and Regalia.”
With that, they
rose into the sky and formed two great arrowheads heading north, each dragon taking advantage of the wake of the dragon in front and in turn passing on the savings in effort to the one behind. The griffaran flew above and between, their long tailfeathers making them look like darts in a hail of arrows.
Arrows aimed at the heart of the Ghioz Empire.
The Copper noticed that they seemed to be following storm-clouds sweeping northeast.
“A storm on its way to Ghihar. It is good we’re behind that,” HeBellereth bellowed. “The air’ll ride easier.”
How fitting. A storm on wings would follow.
Chapter 24
They’d painted Natasatch using a sticky compound of dry clay, honey, dyes, and AuRon didn’t want to know what else. Whatever it was, it clung to scale like hide-ticks.
He circled his mate, surveying the result. Darker stripes ran down her sides. Once it dried they had her fly, circling higher and higher. Of course, she still had her glorious fringe running down her spine, but nothing could be done about that.
When he mentioned it, however, Natasatch began to worry at it with her teeth, trimming it down to the shorter, serrated length of a male. It broke AuRon’s heart to see his mate so disfigured, but it would grow back eventually.
“From afar, it doesn’t look too bad,” Naf said. “Her tail’s a little too long and too thick, but apart from that . . .”
The men cheered. According to Naf, the Dairuss loved a good trick played on enemies. They’d been a subject people for much of their history, under Anklamere, under the cruel Ironriders, and lately under Ghioz, and they had learned the value of the sly wit and clever trick that fools the harvest collector or the labor bondsman.
Naf’s whole camp crackled with excitement. For every man he accepted for the dangerous trip to Ghioz, he had to turn away three. Then he culled that group through contests and exhibitions of sport and strength, with Natasatch acting as judge. A rumor spread through camp that she could smell a hero born by the sweat of his skin.