[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule Read online

  The second came out of his own sii at the elbow joint, one of the favorite spots for his “gargoyles” to sup. He gave that to the young human, Gundar, son of Gunfer.

  The young human drank it in one lusty downing. Red overflow ran out either side of his mouth, and when he put down the cup his almost hairless face suddenly had a new beard and a mustache.

  The Copper watched captured Swayport men gathering wood for the pyre. One of the Aerial Host kept a watchful eye on them, lest they try to dig out a tooth or claw.

  It had been often pointed out to the Copper that odds and ends of dead dragons were worth a great deal in trade in the Upper World. Even his Hypatian allies, canny merchants all, had suggested it.

  It was one thing to collect dropped scales for sale in the Upper World. Harvesting bones and teeth, hearts and livers and sinews for alchemists and craftdwarfs gave him a ghoulish shudder. No, he’d never allow that.

  Once an Ankelene named CuRemom had approached him in the throne room. CuRemom, probably urged on by some dwarftrader, had calculated what a year’s dead dragons would be worth to the Imperial Treasury if properly harvested, bottled, ground, and dried. Hominid witch doctors and physicians counted dragon bits as the most potent of medicines and magics. He’d even tried it on a corpse of a dragon killed in an illegal duel, weighing each part and saying how long it had taken to properly preserve. The Copper did his best to forget the sum mentioned. He’d given the slinker a fuller appreciation for his Tyr’s disapproval of corpse-robbing by hard words and harder pokes with the tip of his tail.

  CuRemom had slunked out, promising to make amends.

  The Copper watched Gundar, invigorated by the blood, dance a jig. He looked to his father, short and stout and squinty, clapping along from the throng. The father was short and fair and the son tall and dark.

  “Fine pup you have there, Gunfer,” the Copper said. Now the youth was whirling, his whipping hair blurring with his face as he spun.

  “M-my T-tyr?” Gunfer said, kneeling at the address. He trembled a little at being recognized.

  Humans! He’d never once simply reached out and eaten a thrall, and he wasn’t about to start now. Wasn’t he famous for decreeing an end to the summary devouring of the Lavadome’s thralls?

  “Your boy. I marked him carrying the Hypatian banner through the gate at the head of the storming column. You should be proud.”

  “Yes, my Tyr. First boy born after you took charge, so to speak.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. He’s grown up strong, even without the sun and rain of the Upper World.”

  “Aye, little secret of ours, passed down from the Isle, you know. For the long winters. His mother, she worked in the nursing halls during all the fighting with the demen. Lots of blood being sloshed about as broken scales were pulled out and wounds sewn up, especially during the fighting in the star cave.”

  The strangest of all the hominid races, the demen were pointy and thick skinned, almost as though they were carrying their armor with them like a lobster. They were vassals of the Dragon Empire now, contributing the Tyr’s own Demen Legion.

  In the air above them a young dragon and dragonelle flew circles around the city in celebration. A Hypatian banner flew in the highest battlement of the Pirate Lord fortress. His human allies had reclaimed their own. It was soon joined by the woven scale and knotwork pattern of the Grand Alliance. Some Hypatians and an Ankelene had labored hard over the design and presented it to him in great solemnity. The Copper didn’t have the heart to tell them he thought it looked like goat tracks, but then he wasn’t of an artistic bent.

  “She drank dragon blood every day while nursing, and mixed it in with his gruel when he started eating on his own. Turned him into a little hellion, but so healthy he practically burst his skin growing.”

  Gunfer chattered on in the manner of humans suddenly admitted into conversation with their superiors, describing his boy’s doings as a youth in exercises and games with the Drakwatch. Apparently he’d never once been caught in a game of Fugitive Hunt.

  Gundar dropped and began a wild kicking dance, spinning like a child’s toy. Then he jumped to his feet as though born on his own set of wings, landing lightly, black hair flashing—

  The Dragonblade!

  The youth might have been a statue cast in the likeness of the man who’d briefly ruled the dragons thanks to a foolish wretch of a Tyr named SiMevolant.

  Humans and their infernal constant mating. It made bloodlines almost impossible to develop and decent breeding futile for all but the most diligent owner of human thralls.

  “Yes, a very fine boy you have there, Gunfer,” the Copper said, more to silence the annoying chatter without insulting a worthy warrior than because he wanted to converse. “He bears watching.”

  He dismissed the unhappy thought, saving it for another day. With that he raised his head high and watched the goat-track banner of the Grand Alliance flutter above the captured city.

  Chapter 2

  Wistala’s polished scale gleamed green in the fall sunshine of the Upper World. The dragonelle always enjoyed the fall season, and not just because of the plentiful summer-fattened game birds that could be knocked senseless or killed with one quick wingstroke. The pine trees smelled just a little bit more crisp, wood and charcoal smoke a little more welcome, and even as something as prosaic as a pile of horse venting could be called gratifying if you watched the steam’s elegant little curtains waft as it dispersed into the breeze.

  Of course the former circus-elf Ragwrist would joke that she was scaring the manure out of the famous white horses when she alighted in the paddocks surrounding her adopted father’s estate house at Mossbell. Ragwrist’s brother, Rainfall, had dragged her unconscious from the great river bordering his estate and succored her, educated her, and ultimately died next to her defending the land and order he loved. Taking his place, Ragwrist had settled down—at least as much as such a lively elf could settle down. He married a trick-rider from his circus and assumed the position of estate-head and landlord to a thriving little town growing up around a highway-rest inn with a green dragon hanging above its door, but he still walked the roads in a bright, colorful coat as though still advertising the spectacles of his circus.

  Only one thing lacked to complete her happiness in the fall sunshine. There should be birdsong in the sheltered vales around Galahall, but the hammering and calls of dwarvish workers had chased them away.

  The dwarf foreman, hearing some shouts from the roof, trotted over to her, whipped off his cloth sweat hat, and made a sweeping bow.

  “Your Protectorship, there’s another difficulty…”

  Dwarfs were great ones for finding difficulty. The difficulty could usually be resolved at additional expense. This one had to do with the need for steel-reinforcing cable. There would be a delay of some weeks in completing the project, though they could finish other matters while they waited for cable.

  Wistala felt her firebladder pulse with vexation.

  Easy there, Wistala, she could almost hear her old guardian elf—and adoptive father—Rainfall say. Civilization is founded on mastering your emotions and guiding your tongue.

  There’s nothing less civilized than stomping a workman you hired into hot, soggy mush.

  “I’ll give you some funds to purchase it. If it’s light enough, I can fly it here myself. That would be a savings, yes?”

  The dwarf bowed again. “Of time and monies. Your Protectorship is judicious.”

  The foreman always complimented her when she agreed to his solutions for difficulties. It lessened the sting of suspicion that the dwarfs were padding the bill, but didn’t do much there for the vexation. At this rate, she’d be beggared before she could assume the dignity of her office from a proper resort.

  Wistala, even by buying and eating blacksmith scraps and rusted tools to feed her scales, still had little coin left over for her own expenses—particularly since she insisted on purchasing her own cattle and sheep for consumption.
Other Protectors demanded feed and metal as their just due, but Wistala asked only for a small yearly contribution from each town and village she “protected” (mostly, she admitted to herself, just by being in the thanedom), leaving it to the local thanes and heads of households and mining interests and craftsmen to work out among themselves. But they tended to pay her in chickens or knitwork, neither of which did much to fill her gold-gizzard.

  The dwarfs were putting up a roof over the old ruins of the thane’s manor house, once called Galahall but soon to be renamed Northflight Resort, the local seat of the Thanedom’s draconic Protector. Long ago, as an unfledged drakka, she’d infiltrated the place to retrieve her elvish guardian Rainfall’s granddaughter, who had come under the spell of an ambitious young Thane. The Thane died in the vicious human-dwarf race-wars which had seen the Wheel of Fire, a clan of violent dwarfs who’d murdered her mother and sister, humbled. Since then, it had fallen into disrepair—Ragwrist, while technically the local thane though he considered the office well-managed by attending celebrations to offer toasts at births, marriages, and deaths, didn’t care for tall, gloomy halls. To add insult to negligence, Galahall had been sacked by marauding Ironriders a few years ago in the war that ended with the Grand Alliance.

  Wistala had grown sick of sleeping in a barnlike structure, half cave and half thatched roof, near Mossbell. Though warm, it made her feel a bit like a cooped chicken, and her fellow Protectors of Hypatia, when visiting, almost dropped their griff in amazement at the rusticity of her dwellings. They’d all long since at least started on stone palaces surrounded by gardens of water and stone. They’d laughed at her and said their thralls lived better than the sister of their Tyr.

  She had plans to make Galahall her official residence, or resort, as Protector of the Northern Thanedoms of Hypatia. All the walls would be linked by a single roof, lined with her own dropped dragonscale and supported by iron melted and recast from captured Ironrider weaponry. She had great plans for its height. Such a roof didn’t exist in the north, not in any temple or old Hypatian hall. Perhaps one of the great Golden Domes of old Ghioz, now reduced to dozens of quarreling baronies under an overgreedy dragon Protector named NiVom, could match it in size. Or the vast hall of the Hypatian Directory, but that was a wonder of the world.

  Then of course there was the Lavadome, a crystal bubble an entire horizon wide buried deep in a volcano, but that was more than wonder. The Lavadome couldn’t even be called architecture; it was a mysterious miracle of a forgotten age, claimed long ago by the dragons who went into hiding from their enemies in the Upper World.

  Her brother had changed all that. Tyr RuGaard, Lord of Worlds, First Protector of the Grand Alliance, slayer of the Dragonblade—

  If she recited her Copper brother’s ceremonial titles she’d be remembering and counting all day. No, the dwarfs needed help steadying their dragonscale-laden machine—crane, it was called a crane—as it lifted its burden to the workdwarfs on the roof.

  A green dart fell out of the sky. Suddenly its wings opened and it landed with a gust of wind that silenced the workers and sent ropes rattling against wooden bracing scaffolds.

  Yefkoa, the swiftest dragonelle in the Firemaids, landed.

  Wistala liked Yefkoa. The dragonelle had the energy and interest in long journeys and had good directional sense. She rarely got lost, even when flying over unfamiliar lands. She also had an unusually passionate loyalty to Tyr RuGaard and would threaten any who disparaged his odd looks and awkward ways.

  “Fill a trough for this dragonelle,” she ordered one of the dwarfs. “What brings you in such a hurry, Yefkoa.”

  “The Queen requests your presence at once,” she panted.

  “What, another war?” Since forming the Grand Alliance a generation ago, the Hypatians had acted high-handed toward their neighbors. They enjoyed the power of dragons at their back. Oddly enough, the Tyr encouraged their campaigns and excursions as though he thought to gain by all this enemy-making.

  “I don’t believe so, but it is a matter of some urgency. She bade me to fly quickly, though she gave no commands about you making haste. She simply said ‘as soon as Wistala can manage the trip’.”

  Nilrasha, Queen of Worlds, with other titles thanks to her being Tyr RuGaard’s mate, must be obeyed. The Dragon Empire had an unspoken “or else” attached to such commands—most of the consequences involved loss of position.

  Luckily, the northern thanedoms needed little protecting at the moment. Winter had already settled into the mountains, so Ironrider raiders would find all the seasonal passes closed, and the northern barbarians would already be filling their barns and cellars to wait out the snow and ice heaped about their mead-halls and hovels. “I shall attend her. But there must be a delay of a few days, thanks to minor difficulties in building my resort. The dwarfs need me in the air to lift and set the capstones.”

  It might be in my advantage to be away for a while, Wistala thought. The dwarfs can’t spend my last coin if I’m not around to buy them out of any more difficulties.

  * * *

  The air was full of eagles.

  It was good eagle country, here in the tangled foothills of the mountains with the ocean in sight and a dozen river-fed, cliff-shadowed lakes beneath. The inaccessible heights guarded future generations of eggs, and the ample updrafts made flying almost effortless for feather wings.

  The vultures, bigger than the eagles but keeping a polite distance—of all the creatures she’d encountered in her travels they were the most sensitive and genteel of creatures. No raucous fighting, no territorial displays, and a philosophical diffidence as they waited to do their duty in disposing of bits and pieces, lest the flies grew so thick on offal they’d carpet the world.

  Wistala marked an occupied nest above the Queen’s lookout, and dropped to give it a wide berth. Though an eagle couldn’t do much more to a dragon than put an eye out, a desperate attack in defense of eggs wasn’t unknown.

  AuRon told her once that his friend Naf—now long since King Naf of Dairuss—had hidden in this tangled border country while hiding with his rebels from the Red Queen of the Ghioz. It was a good land for someone who wanted to hide. Vesk after vesk of steep-sided river valleys, thickly wooded and vined, were inspiring from the air, but even a long-necked dragon would easily become disoriented on the ground.

  She made a gentle call, both to alert the eagles so they wouldn’t be startled by her presence and to announce her arrival.

  She glided into the Queen’s cave. It had a good view of the west and was warmed by the setting sun. She marked a few reinforcing pillars—someone had gone to the trouble to enlarge the cave. She’d visited a few times before, years ago when the flightless Queen had first been installed in her high resort. Since then, it had been much improved.

  A few blighters, long-armed, hairy collections of appetites known for their strong backs and quick quarrels, greeted her with offerings of water, sweet wine, and toasted meat on wooden skewers. They wore colorful ponchos closed with brooches of green dragonscale. She accepted a little of each offering as an unusually tall blighter, with a careful request for permission in passable Drakine, massaged her wing tendons, first on one side, then the other.

  The Queen had a homey cave. It had better air flowing through than the cave of her birth and the faint sounds rising from the thick forest below soothed when the air was still.

  An aged griffaran, almost featherless and droopy, stood sentinel on a hidden perch. A platter that smelled offish stood near him on its own treelike stand. She wondered if he was some veteran of a dozen battles, now in a pleasantly airy sinecure as honor guard to the Queen. His beak and talon still appeared razor sharp, so perhaps it wasn’t just for show.

  Later it occurred to Wistala that the Queen might have encouraged eagles to build their tangled nests and settle about her quarters like a kindlewood crown. A dragon couldn’t have too many sets of wary eyes to give the alarm when living above ground.

  There would
be many an eagle jealous of that view, Wistala thought. Her cave looked out over sharp, rocky pillars with little soil, but what had collected in the nooks and crevices sprouted wind-twisted trees. Low clouds made the lush valley floors, echoing with the sound of rivers and waterfalls, hazy or invisible. Off to the west, a thin strip of the inland ocean could just be seen. Wistala, judging the sun’s descent, decided that no matter what the Queen’s concerns she wouldn’t miss the view of the sunset.

  She heard breathing from deeper inside the cave.

  “My Queen, you called for me?”

  “Ages ago, it seems. Thank you for coming. I long for company.”

  Wistala ambled into the Queen’s presence and they clacked griff in greeting. Neither bothered with bows, they were relatives by mating fight. Nilrasha had lost her taste for courtly gestures since the war injury that left her with stumps for wings.

  Queen Nilrasha was still beautiful, but it was the beauty of a ruin, like the old, fern-sided, weather-shaped stones of Tumbledown where she’d hunted for metals as an unfledged drakka. Her scales were still well-shaped, and she was still strong-limbed—probably stronger-limbed than most dragons, having to rely on them for climbing all the way up to her resort. She had a well-shaped head, which reminded her a little of Au-Ron’s mate Natasatch about the nostrils and eyes, though the Queen’s fringe, the pride of any dragonelle or dragon-dame, was clipped and stiffened and shaped into pleasing waves running down her back. Natasatch had a natural crest, much like Wistala’s—a little ragged and bent from wear and fighting.

  Only a little paint highlighted some of the scale around her eyes, nostrils, jawline, and griff. White polished teeth added to her other carefully groomed attractions. Wistala was relieved that the Queen didn’t color her scale any of the garish pinks and purples that seemed to be in vogue in the Lavadome. She’d been told that many a firemaiden recruit needed a thorough scrubbing with a wire-tipped brush to get the paint off her scales.