[Age of Fire 05] - Dragon Rule Read online

  He consented to a bristle-brush scrubbing of his skin, more to keep his mate company while they worked to clean beneath her scale. She chattered happily to him the whole while, and he suddenly felt better about the trip south. Maybe he’d encourage her to visit Hypat more often. Wistala seemed to like her and might appreciate a companion on her rounds, doing whatever a Queen of Two Worlds did.

  She’d refused several friendly loans of “body thralls”—slaves, really, to help her prepare for the victory banquet by filing and shaping her scale. “A healthy dragonelle is perfectly capable of attending to her own scale, and I wouldn’t care to go into a fight with those oversharp talons you underground dragons seem to favor.”

  Fashionable dragons are such a bore, she thought to him. He’d never been more proud of her.

  They had good weather for the feast, with just enough wind to disperse the dragon smell so that the humans could enjoy themselves. The only part of the banquet AuRon enjoyed was the fact that Natasatch gloried in the polite exchanges and friendly conversations. It did his hearts good to see his mate so happy.

  It was held before the Directory, a vast building where the Hypatians met and schemed and governed, a place of alliances and betrayals, of promises public and secret agendas, or so Wistala’s quick history of it explained when AuRon and Natasach were shown inside. There were circular ranks of benches fitted for humans running around the walls looking down on enormous statues of the beasts of the world: Oxen and dolphins and lions and such, along with a dragon who had the wrong number of toes and his crest-horns growing in the wrong direction.

  Wistala had a high opinion of the traditions of the place, something to do with some old elf friend of hers who’d been a “Knight of the Directory.” To AuRon the place only echoed with noisy vanity.

  AuRon noted an empty place next to his brother—where his Queen Nilrasha would be had she not been restricted from travel by injuries. Perhaps for the first time since their hatching he felt a pang of sympathy for the Copper. Tyr RuGaard was grave and ate little, though he offered elaborate praise and politenesses to his guests. On his other side Wistala reclined, supplying him with names when he forgot the identity of this, that, or the other so-and-so.

  “My tongue does you an injustice,” his brother said, after mispronouncing the name of a human thane from the north.

  The human, awestruck and uncomfortable in the presence of a throng of dragons, assured “my Tyr” that he was utterly unable to pronounce half the dragon names in attendance.

  When it came time for the banquet, the dragons ate on the great pillar-bordered street leading up to the immense Hypatian Directory. Even that vast building couldn’t fit this many dragons, at least in such a way that they might be fed. Using a road allowed oxcarts to carry food to the dragons, stretched out on their bellies in a vast rectangle—the oxen were blindfolded and had Ghiozian camphor rubbed in their noses to cover up the dragon smell to forestall panic.

  Dragons, humans, and a smattering of elves and dwarfs and even a blighter or two with hair neatly bound and ribboned dined in two long lines flanking the road. The dragons lay on their bellies to eat and many of the humans and elves did likewise, reaching for tidbits from bearers carrying plates in endless procession.

  AuRon and Natasatch, with Istach trailing behind, were both last and first. They were the last dragons to be introduced—as “distinguished visitors from the north and relatives of our great Tyr,” ahead of various humans and elves and dwarfs representing their kind.

  In the interval between the feast and the ceremonies Wistala talked with a dozen rather wizened, bent-over humans, whom she introduced as “librarians”—keepers of knowledge and secrets.

  “Oh, would you look at that little bit of tail?” Natasatch said, spying the mate of one of Hypat’s ‘Protectors.’ “Dyed all in red. She looks like she’s trying to pass as male.”

  AuRon glanced over at the dragon who’d chosen a bright shade of red favored by the Red Queen, who’d ruled Ghioz until she settled on war against the Dragons of the Lavadome. He’d had more than a claw in the killing of the strange creature who claimed to be too busy to ever die. He half-hoped one of her supply of bodies still lurked at the edges of his brother’s realm, ready to wake him out of his dangerous dreams of an ever-expanding rule.

  “Oh, and look at that painted advertiser,” Natasatch said, referring to a graceful young dragonelle, some sprig of dragon nobility with fledging scars still dripping and wing skin hardly dry, who’d painted the fanlike griff that protect a dragon’s neck-hearts with gold and added jeweled designs to her claws. “Practically simpering in hopes of a mating flight,” she thought to him. “Some young dragon will get a mate and a hoard in one quick flight. Weighed down like that, she could get caught and breeched by an eager eagle.”

  His mate displayed a rather perverse sense of humor at times. She explained it as the product of long years sequestered on an dismal egg shelf with nothing to do but dream erotic dreams.

  “Mother!” Istach said, scandalized.

  “Isn’t that Varatheela with her?” AuRon asked aloud.

  “No, surely she would have greeted us,” Natasatch said.

  “It is Varatheela,” Istach said. “She’s with some firemaids, if I read the designs on their wings correctly, that is.”

  Well, dragonelles had to grow up sooner or later, AuRon decided. Still, it felt odd to be at a feast without even a word from your own offspring.

  The hominid guests, AuRon noted, ate on their stomachs in the fashion of dragons, perched on cushioned benches. The oddly proportioned human frame looked only a little more dignified in that manner, though some of them stuck their hindquarters rather high in the air like a cat seeking a mate.

  A silver-with-black-tipped dragon settled everyone down and introduced Wistala as the new Queen Consort to roars of approval. The dragon went on for quite some time, lauding her ability with languages, her rank in the Hypatian hierarchy—AuRon wondered how she managed that—and her prowess in battle. The stuffed dragons, with ample coin in their gold-gizzards and juicy joints in their bellies, roared their approval in a manner that sent pigeons in flight all over the city like little feathery fireworks.

  “I cannot replace Nilrasha,” Wistala said. “But I can try to follow her example of diligence and devotion to the dragons in her care. I will also do my best for the hominid half of the Alliance. Let our Hypatian allies know that they now have a voice even atop Imperial Rock in the Lavadome.”

  The humans sprang to their feet and cheered and waved their arms at that.

  The Copper’s good eye narrowed upon hearing those words. AuRon suspected that he hadn’t been told of that part of the speech beforehand. But words once spoken were as lost as yesterday, as NooMoahk the Black used to say.

  He felt proud for his sister, even if he thought her a bit too trusting of their copper sibling.

  They heard a song about the battle with the Pirate Lords in Swayport, and a scarred dragon named HeBellereth introduced the newest member of the Aerial Host: AuSurath the Red. His rider would be Gundar son of Gunfer. They both proceeded between the lines of dragons, AuSurath walking slowly so his rider could keep up.

  They ascended to the stairs of the Directory, where the Copper now sat with Wistala and the Hypatian directors.

  “All mark and hail AuSurath, newest member of the Aerial Host. All mark and hail Gundar, his rider and attendant.”

  Gundar drank a ceremonial drop of blood placed in wine from a golden chalice. Then AuSurath bit off the end of one of the his rider’s fingers of his off hand. AuRon wondered how that tradition ever was started.

  A tremendous volume of wind from one very fat Protector from the cattle-rich south spoiled the solemnity somewhat, but everyone pretended not to notice.

  “I’m so proud of our offspring,” Natasatch said.

  AuRon watched the new dragon and rider pair look at their off-kilter Tyr with naked adoration and felt his summer go sour.

&nbs
p; * * *

  AuMoahk visited them late that night, dropping exhausted from the sky. He was serving the Grand Alliance as a messenger, and while he was given leave to attend the ceremony involving his aunt and brother, winds had delayed wings not long used to flying.

  Even Varatheela snuck into the circus arena to pay a call on her parents, coming in the dead of night and smelling of wine and fragrant oils. She made her apologies, and talked nonstop of social matters with the Firemaids, who had been assigned to which part of the Alliance, what entrances to the Lower World were being explored, which members of the Aerial Host were to take mates this year.

  Her nonstop chatter of matters he didn’t care about, with his mate hanging on every detail, bothered AuRon more than he could put into words. It seemed he was losing his family to the glories of his brother’s empire.

  He decided to take the night air outside the circus. He heard wings above and glanced up, but whatever had been there vanished behind one of the canvas shades. Curious-sounding wings. Small but almost dragonlike—no feathered creature would have made such a leathery flap. He wondered if the Copper had dispatched one of those griffaran of his—no, they were feathered, too.

  What was it?

  He opened his wings to go investigate when Wistala tipped her head over the circus wall.

  “AuRon,” Wistala said. “May we talk? I have a duty for you to perform, if you’re willing.”

  “With all these polished dragons coming and going?” AuRon asked. “They’re much more impressive. I’m sure one of them will serve.”

  He hopped over the wall and joined her, landing as silently as a cat—were there a cat that weighed as much as a strong pair of horses, that is. Let’s see a scaled dragon do that! Why he decided on an athletic display he couldn’t say, just his general feeling of dissatisfaction with events of late made his muscles twitch.

  She ignored him. “It’s rather a delicate situation. Your friend, King Naf of the Dairuss. He’s proving a problem for the Grand Alliance. He’s kicked out his Protector.”

  “Good old Naf,” AuRon said. “I’m glad he hasn’t changed.”

  His sister dug her sii claws into the dirt of the arena and tore some up. “Dairuss is in an odd predicament, as far as the Empire and these Hypatians are concerned. It was a province of Ghioz, and before that a part of the Hypatian Empire. The Tyr put SoRolotan there—do you know him? Well, never mind. The Tyr put a dragon he didn’t care for much as Protector there, as it was an unimportant province, more to get him out of the way, I suppose. Something about the Tyr preventing him from taking a mate he wanted. In any case, it ended badly. I understand SoRolotan barely escaped with his life. Are the people of Dairuss unusually contentious?”

  “I’m no expert on human history,” AuRon said. His stomach was growling. He hadn’t eaten much at the celebratory feast and the smell of all the draft animals brought fierce hunger pangs.

  “The old Ghioz empire has been broken up. Each province has a dragon to help the humans there, save for Dairuss. We’re afraid they’ll declare independence from the Grand Alliance. The Hypatians would never allow that.”

  “You mean a war.”

  “Not if I have my way,” Wistala said. “I’m sure you don’t want to see your friend killed or humbled.”

  “Of course not. I have few enough friends left.”

  “Would you like to hear my solution?”

  AuRon sighed. “Probably not. I’m sure I can guess what it is.”

  “You’d have a title. ‘Protector’ is one of the most respected of positions, second only to the Tyr himself in responsibility.”

  “Title? I don’t care much for titles.”

  “Dairuss must be a more congenial climate than your island.”

  “You haven’t spoken about this to Natasatch, have you?”

  “I dropped a hint. She swore not to mention it unless you brought it up.”

  “You do know how to sink your claws into your prey, don’t you, sister.”

  “AuRon, can’t you see what I’m trying to build here? Your help would be invaluable. I’m trying to make a world where dragons have faith in humans, and humans in dragons. A Hypatian family out riding the Great North Road no longer gallops to the trees at the sight of a dragon overhead. Dogs aren’t sent into caves to sniff out dragons anymore. What happened to Mother and Father will never happen again, if I have anything to say about it.”

  AuRon thought he heard that quiet flapping again, somewhere among the wooden spars. Were they being spied upon? “You forgot to add, thanks to our brother: He’s the one who put this Grand Alliance on the map, so to speak.”

  “And I admire him for it,” Wistala said.

  “I find it hard to forget—the cave.”

  Wistala looked up. Maybe she’d heard that small flapping noise too. “I’m not excusing that hatchling. Every time I look into his face, I see my anger in that lazy, scarred eye of his. He did a great wrong to us.”

  She tried to read AuRon and failed. Her scaleless brother had a way of drawing in on himself, disappearing against the background as his skin changed color. Most dragons were easy to read: rage, hunger, lust, triumph, they huffed and stamped whatever they felt. AuRon and DharSii were the only two she’d ever known who could hide their emotions completely. Even the courtly dragons of the Lavadome gave a little away. She continued: “He’s done right by his dragons now. Our family was just five dragons—six if you count him, which no one on our egg shelf ever did. But to the dragons he leads, a hundred times that number and more… he’s brought them out of hiding and back into the sun, in safety.”

  “My dragons were safe on our island, too,” AuRon said, feeling a bit like a petulant hatchling immediately after, yammering that his appetite was just as big.

  “I’m sorry, Wistala,” he continued. “This doesn’t really matter, at least to anyone but us. Naf and Hieba—King Naf and Queen Hieba, that is, are my friends. Are they really in danger?”

  “The last to defy the Grand Alliance was the old colony at Swayport. Now the new old colony, much impoverished. I once pretended to predict the future but I can’t anymore, brother. But if they continue to resist, it may involve the Aerial Host again, if the Hypatians come up with a pretext to settle old scores. I understand a number of Hypatians who didn’t much care for the Grand Alliance fled. Dairuss is a place of refugees. During the Dragon Wars many elves and men fled from their troubles on the Hypatian coast to their lands across the mountains. Some old Ghioz aristocrats are still important men there, there are even Ironriders who surrendered to them rather than face the wrath of the Hypatians and the dragons of the Grand Alliance. It wouldn’t be difficult for our brother and the Hypatians to justify a war.”

  “And how am I to prevent that?”

  “By getting Naf to rejoin the Grand Alliance. I spoke to him personally about the issue. He swears he’ll have no dragon on his lands as Protector—no dragon except you.”

  AuRon returned to his family deep in thought. Their offspring, exhausted by the excitement of the day, slept in the style of hatchlings, near the belly of their mother.

  Only AuSurath was missing. He was probably off somewhere, watching his rider numb his wounded hand in ice.

  They made a pretty picture.

  AuRon could not help but feel some pride at the achievements of his hatchlings. This awful empire of his brother’s inspired them in a way he found disturbing. He’d done his best to educate them, to warn them of the example of Silverhigh…

  He couldn’t blame them for not wanting to stay among the fogs and reefs of his island. Conversations with wolves couldn’t match the splendor of these elegant dragons.

  “That was another time, Father,” AuMoahk said, earlier that evening. His son’s rebuke still echoed in his thoughts. “Besides, we don’t make enemies of hominids, we make friends.”

  “I’m sure that was how it was in the early days of Silver-high, too.”

  Perhaps fate had just decided to repeat itself
. AuRon had read enough histories in NooMoahk’s library to know that sometimes events repeated themselves even when all the parties concerned knew full well the details of past tragedies.

  Natasach opened an eye.

  “Did you enjoy your walk?” she thought to him.

  “I met Wistala. It seems she has a problem she believes I can help her solve. It involves my friend, King Naf in Dairuss. She asks me to fly there and engage in a little diplomacy on her behalf.”

  He decided not to tell her about the possibility of a Protectorship.

  Natasatch’s scale lifted in excitement. “So what did you say?”

  “I said nothing. I wanted to get your opinion first. You see, it would probably mean several years away from our island, and I know how much you enjoy the winters there.”

  “Oh AuRon, don’t tease. What will you do, my love?”

  “Do my best to resolve the issue, I suppose. I can’t leave Naf at the mercy of these unscrupulous, greedy dragons. Will you accompany me there?”

  “Silly. Nothing would please me better. I’m happy to see more of the world, especially with you.”

  Chapter 4

  Dairuss and the City of the Golden Dome had grown since last AuRon had seen it. It rivaled even Hypat in size, though probably not in population; there were still many fields where sheep grazed within the city proper.

  AuRon took the precaution of first visiting the guardpost in the high pass of the Red Mountains, once Naf’s station, and sending word by Dairuss messenger that AuRon the Gray had returned with mate and offspring to visit and consult with King Naf.

  The men of the guard watched from their tower slits. Mysterious clanks and clatters echoed from within—were they pushing furniture to barricade the door, setting out fire buckets, or preparing war machines to fire harpoons?

  He assuaged his anxiety by telling Istach stories of how he and Naf met, back when he was just a lowly sword-for-hire guarding dwarven gold. How he raised Hieba up from a little girl stolen from a ravaged trade caravan to Queen, and how Naf’s people had been the first to fight back against the Ghioz empire.