Another of the dragonelles cocked her head at Ayafeeia. Ayafeeia snapped her griff, not so much a warning for a coming fight as an expression of confidence in speaking as she chose. “Now, let’s get back to our thralls and see about properly bracing that wing. I’ve set three claw-score broken wings and I know: you’ll get air under you again. It looks much worse than it really is. I’d take a break over a cut ligament anytime.”

Chapter 8

AuRon knew the way to the northern territories of Ghioz, as he’d crossed it once before. He’d last seen his former human ward, Hieba, and her mate, the laughing warrior Naf, there some three years ago, plus a season.

He made a brief visit to the dwarves of the Chartered Company. They fed him in one of their high halls, its opulence much reduced and obviously rebuilt after damage in dragon-attack during the wizard’s wars. The dwarves told stale stories and grumbled much about a Ghioz “embargo”—whatever that was—and gave him one piece of interesting news: they had acquired a messenger-dragon. Scarfang was a former fighter for the Wizard of the Isle of Ice who’d come to the dwarves’ doorstep to visit where a dragon-friend of his had fallen in the battle. Finding the residents willing to let enmity be carried off down the river, the dragon inquired if the dwarves had knowledge of his comrade’s fate. The dwarves had no good news—they’d finished the wounded dragon—but since all seemed amenable despite the effusion of blood on both sides, the dwarves hired him as a flying courier.

AuRon had never met Scarfang, but he congratulated the dwarves on their new line of business. Which just gave them an excuse to talk about the collapse of their trade routes east. The Ghioz had formed some kind of alliance with the Ironriders and only Ghioz caravans now traded between the rich kingdoms of the Great East and Hypatia and the Dry South.

“More wealth buys them more allies which buys them still more wealth,” one of the partners grumbled.

AuRon left the dwarves to their complaining and flew south.

First he went to the pass where he’d last met Naf and Hieba.

The pass had changed a little. What had once been a precarious trail hugging the side of the mountain was now a road, more or less, allowing wagons to use the pass rather than the foot traffic it had seen before. He wondered if the iron road of the dwarves had quit bringing cargo from one side of the Red Mountains to the other.

The lonely tower at the top of the pass, with its ready signal pyre dry under stout canvas, looked much the same.

He remembered some effort at a flower bed, probably a touch of Hieba’s. A new stable covered the ground where the flowers had been, and much more besides—what looked like a storeroom set into the side of the mountain and a war machine ready to hurl missiles down the road toward Hypatia.

The tower was now flanked by a wall blocking the new road, and it looked as though lumber and iron had been gathered in preparation for installing a gate. Small subsidiary watch-posts, one higher on the slope and one lower, looked like stony shepherds’ huts in positions chosen more for the view than comfort.

He circled the tower for some time, using the same long, slow, descending loops as he had over that little village with Wistala’s Inn, as he liked to characterize it.

No sign of Naf, but much heraldry in the form of banners of various colors and designs and many more horses than the stables could hold.

They neither took alarm—even the reasonable precaution of hiding their horses—or attempted to signal him. He had no desire for converse. They might order him out of Ghioz or try to put a poisoned arrow in his eye as they talked.

Naf had spoken, more than once, of his dreams of freeing his people from the Ghioz. AuRon had hoped against hope that he held his pass still, so he could at least look at his homeland, but saw no sign of him. He certainly would have come out and signaled if he’d been there.

AuRon descended the eastern side of the mountains into Naf’s homeland, the province of Dairuss, and circled over the City of the Golden Dome, his joints aching at the long day flying at high altitude, and looked down on the seat of the Ghioz government in the north. The city had swelled, it seemed, absorbing the population that had fled the wars on the other side of the mountains. He had just reconciled himself to an end of flying for the day when he caught a flash of scale off to the east.

That dot against a cloud was a dragon, no doubt. Too much neck and tail for anything else.

AuRon, thanks to his scaleless skin, could fly like an arrow when he chose, and he chose to intercept the unknown dragon, who seemed to be following the river bordering Dairuss north.

The dragon moved slowly, either exhausted or burdened. At first he turned a little toward AuRon as though interested in speeding the encounter.

With the day ending, AuRon had the slight advantage over the stranger of having the sun at his back. He could see that the unknown dragon was a red, with dark stripes descending his scales. Odd color scheme. His own skin had dark stripes too.

Suddenly the dragon dove. As he turned, AuRon saw he bore some sort of harness, a smaller, simpler version of his own. If he had a rider it was a fat, well-wrapped one hugging saddle and scale with all four limbs.

The stranger turned belly-up and his harness fell away, twisting as it dropped to the trees below. It was no rider after all, but some sort of cargo-saddle such as mules and packhorses wore. For a moment AuRon dipped and turned to follow the faster-moving object—a natural instinct but one Red Stripe used to advantage. Released of his burden, he fought for altitude, and AuRon found that Red Stripe had the sun painfully behind him and advantage of wind and altitude.

“I’ve no wish to fight,” AuRon bellowed.

“. . . stay . . . or . . . below me,” the stranger called back, keeping his advantage as AuRon rose.

AuRon almost tried outclimbing the strange dragon to regain dominance in the encounter, but the cautious half of his brain took over and had him glide inoffensively back toward the dropped pack. Why reveal to the stranger just how fast he could climb?

“Might we land and talk?” AuRon called, and flew closer, repeating the offer.

“You first,” Red Stripe called back.

AuRon swooped down, tilting his body first right and then left, a quick way to drop but still have plenty of momentum in case you needed to fly off to avoid an attack. Plus it allowed him to keep an eye on the stranger.

Red Stripe imitated him and they found a wild brambly patch in the woods. There were thick thorns here and AuRon guessed it flooded in the spring, judging from the grasses and reeds. But now it was dry.

The stranger neatly retrieved his pack from where close-packed trees had caught it, with some loss of branches. It must be a heavy burden. Nevertheless Red Stripe extracted it with a mad flap of a hover and a dip of his tail.

A neat trick. AuRon didn’t want to be impressed. Every instinct told him to bristle and assert himself in the presence of a strange male, but he couldn’t help the impulse to admire such a deft move.

AuRon flattened some of the thorn bushes about. There were game trails crisscrossing this clearing. Whatever lived here must have a thick hide.

Red Stripe dropped his pack near them in the tangle of brambles and set down. He dug about behind his griff and then approached with whatever it was held in his right mouth. The gesture drew attention to the fact that he wore a gold earring. The decoration unsettled AuRon. It reminded him too much of the fixtures for lines on the wizard’s trained dragons.

“I am AuRon of the Isle of Ice,” AuRon said, taking the stranger’s part in greeting, since he’d moved to intercept Red Stripe. His store of dragon etiquette was about as deep as a puddle. He dipped his head.

“I am DharSii of Sadda-Vale,” the stranger said. If his nose dipped, it only just moved.

AuRon wondered at the name. It was “Quick-claw” in Drakine, but he’d never heard of dragons named for objects or their alleged attributes. It struck him as odd.

This DharSii stared at the old hatchling egg horn still perched between his nostrils for a moment, as if making sure of his eyes. Dragons usually lost their egg horn soon after hatching, but AuRon had fought the itch to rub it off and kept his, and it had saved his life in the hatching combat with his brothers.

Too small to be a weapon anymore, its only use of late was for aiming small, precise globs of fire for the amusement of his hatchlings.

“I am sorry if I alarmed you with my approach,” AuRon ventured. DharSii had impressive size, rugged scale, a keen, watchful eye, and healthy horns projecting from his crest, rather more outward and up than most dragons, almost in the manner of an ox. AuRon wouldn’t care to fight him.

“Care for some oliban to ease the words?” DharSii asked, extracting the tube from his mouth. He reared up and fiddled with a cylinder, put some quartz-like granules in his sii, and held them out to AuRon.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a distillate of rare woods to the south with a most relaxing aroma. The smell is more intense in liquid form, but it stores better as a crystal, even if the effect is diminished. The aroma is exceedingly pleasing, if you’ve never experienced it.”

The stranger had a fanciful way of speaking. AuRon wondered what hid behind the camouflage of words.