All those old rumors about the Dragonblade drinking the blood of dragons he’d slain. If those two were to inadvertently breed a generation of dragonblades . . .

An ugly doubt crept in on claw-sheathed saa. What if it wasn’t inadvertent? What if they were trying to breed another dragonblade, or two, or six, or a score? He would have to keep an eye on those two, and his eyes already had too many other dangers to be watching.

“I’ll put a stop to that.”

He sent Rayg and his collection of climbing gear away. Even if Rayg had dazzled him with lies, suppose he did escape? He owed such debts to Rayg—he should really grant him his freedom and let him enjoy the sunshine in the Upper World.

But it wasn’t up to one sentimental, indulgent young Tyr. The Lavadome needed Rayg’s skills.

NoSohoth spoiled his digestion with a new round of complaints from Upholds to the south and northeast. The Ghioz were stealing cattle, brigands were raiding their blighter allies on the world’s end.

Nilrasha returned late, ill-tempered, tired, and footsore. She’d been accompanying some drakka in the Firemaidens on a fast training march to the river ring.

“On the return trip I brought a gift of fowl to SoRolatan at the Six Ridges. He’s still smarting over that dragonelle you took out from under his nose.”

“In a fair flight he’d never catch up to her. Fat old thing.”

“Still,” she said, “I had to listen to his fool of a mate babble while I tried to come up with new features to praise on a dragon remarkable only for how little there is to praise. I kept the compliments flowing through an entire meal to get a promise that his latest hatchlings would go into the Firemaidens.”

“You play this game like you’ve been doing it since you were in the egg.”

She looked off, beyond their little outer chamber. “You forget, my love, that I grew up on milkdrinker’s hill. Only one rich dragon there—that bug Sreeksrack—and the rest of us were fighting over his scraps. It’s the same game. They want what you have, only the stakes have changed. Under milkdrinker’s hill it might have been a rusty shovel scoop or a scrawny old chicken. Now it’s rooms looking out on the dome and or a share of oliban trade.”

The Copper touched tail-tip to tail-tip. “You’re the rock my rule rests upon.”

“Quit cracking it and I wouldn’t have to spend all my time filling cracks.” She stared at him as though she were looking at him for the first time tonight. “My Tyr, you look positively bled! You weren’t feeding those bats again.”

“No. Demen.”

“Oh, whatever—”

“That general of theirs, Gigrix, he’d had dragonblood before. I saw an opportunity.”

“You’ll lose his respect. A Tyr doing such a thing.”

He told her about the twins’ experiments with humans and Rayg’s opinion.

“I’ll have a word with their thralls,” she said.

“You have influence even with theirs?”

“I’ve worked hard to have all the thralls come to me with their problems. Thralls know their owners better than their families, you know.”

“I thought you rewarded them out of a kind heart,” the Copper said. It would be hard to say whether he was disappointed, impressed, or some mix of both.

She snorted. “They’re a tool, like claws, like tongue, like feasts.”

“Like mating?” He half hoped she would lie to him.

She cocked her head. “Not ours, my love.”

As the thralls cleared away the meal he put his neck across hers. Nilrasha tickled him with her griff and began to sing.

These were his favorite moments. He felt like a hatchling again, warm against his mother—or at least that’s how he imagined a hatchling felt. He’d had only one brief moment with his own . . .

Chapter 10

They gave him a comfortable nook out of the wind that couldn’t quite be called a cave, but it had a fine view of the mountains to the south, soft bracken to rest upon, and a windbreak. It smelled faintly of dragon, but not DharSii. AuRon found an old white scale, lost under the bracken and tinged with yellow and red fissures.

He idled for a night and a day. A pair of blighters wearing leather reinforced with dragonscale at the knees, shoulders, and elbows, well groomed save that they were barefoot, brought him a cartload of hams and sausages of assorted shapes and flavorings.

“More?” one asked in intelligible, if not intelligent, Drakine.

AuRon broke one open, sniffed carefully, tested it with his tongue, then took a taste. It seemed wholesome.

“This will do for now.”

He ate lightly, just in case.

It was pleasant to be at this altitude. Back in the north, ice and snow would be thick in this fissure. He had just enough energy to find a cool stream for drinking and bathing.

When he returned from his bath he heard the blighters calling, blowing a horn and rattling a ring of metal against a rod.

He snuck up from downwind and startled them. It was good to keep in practice, but with the noise they made, he had little difficulty.

“Come, come. Eat! Soon she see you.”

They had an offering in the form of some cooked organmeats, swimming in butter. He hadn’t had butter in years, but once again forced himself to politely nibble.

A third hominid, this one a human, watched from a distance. He looked too stout to be much used to hiking up and down mountains, but ambled off as soon as they began their journey down the ridge.

The blighters led him down toward the scaffold-shrouded hillside. There was an arched door at the end of the path, up a short rocky zigzag of stairs through a sort of wild garden, but it was too small for a dragon to squeeze through, though AuRon thought he might just make it if supplied with a little more butter to grease the passage.

Instead the blighters led him off down a gravel road and he smelled horses. A small field beneath the ear and cheekbone on the great face held bright green grass and a few horses, either the ones who’d pulled the Queen’s chariot or cousins of theirs.

The blighters led him inside a sort of stone barn. He found the Red Queen in the stables, examining one of her horses’ feet with a dwarf wider than he was tall, clad in a heavy leather apron and belt sagging under the weight of tools. The dwarf’s sideburns were thick with glowing moss, brighter than any species AuRon had yet seen, and the rest of it showed no evidence of gold dust or other decor. The dwarf must have cared only about proper illumination for his work.

The Red Queen wore a sort of thick red canvas cloak that reminded AuRon of those little cups at the end of handles that hominids used to snuff candles. She simply wore a light scarf about her face this time. AuRon found himself frozen in his tracks by a pair of startling blue eyes, heavily blackened about the rims with stenciling, which only drew attention to their size and clarity.

She said something quietly to the dwarf, who nodded.

The Red Queen looked at him and the corners of her eyes crinkled. He guessed she smiled. “It never hurts to pay attention to details.”

“At your service, Great Queen,” AuRon said, remembering DharSii’s phrasing.

She took him farther into the mountain. The passages were wide, high, and airy—AuRon recognized dwarf workmanship when he saw it, though there was none of the impressive decor of the Chartered Company.

“Details, AuRon, details. Of course there are always more than can be seen to. The trouble is, we can’t be easily in six places at once.”

She led him to a sort of domed chamber at the bottom of a divided staircase with a wall-fountain bubbling between the balustrades and more stairs descending back into the mountain from the chamber. Light came in, soft and diffuse, from twin slits in narrowing shafts, which AuRon suspected were nostrils. “Won’t you excuse me for a moment? You may wish to admire the fountain, or refresh yourself at it.”

AuRon contented himself with looking at the stonecraft. The back of the fountain was a mosaic of precisely measured square shapes, tipped sideways to be diamonds. They were arranged in an intricate design, rather thicker at the bottom and narrowing at the top. All he could think was that it was some highly stylized depiction of a mountain.

“Can you believe the blighters made that? It’s a relic of Old Uldam. Yes, even the blighters once claimed this mountain as their own. But they didn’t keep it long enough to make many exterior alterations, or we might have fangs to remove from the mountain-face.”

She’d changed her wardrobe into a simple long dress, as spare as her previous outfit had been elaborate. Three silver brooches, elongated triangles, held it about her. He’d been right. Her figure was spare, but it just drew attention to her head. A translucent mask of swirling crystal cut to resemble—oh, he couldn’t say—smoothed ice hid her face now. A light silk wrap of black with a hint of glittering gold covered her hair and neck.

She carried a lighter version of her previous mask. This one was ivory colored and had the appearance of stiffened, intricately sewn lace, with the same smile on one side and frown on the other.

“Red outdoors, black indoors, as simple as that.”