The Fireblade mass exploded into various shades of green.

“As best as best can be,” Vank said, when she alighted to hear the news. “We told them to get back on their side of the river, or there would be bloodshed and unceasing war so long as man dared walk in our woods.”

“That’s the way to treat men,” a warrior interrupted, thumping fist against his small round shield, edged with swordcatchers. “Like dogs! Fierce enough until they meet a fight. Then they tuck tail and scuttle. Scuttle!”

“Aye!” another barked.

“And?” Wistala asked, ignoring the byplay.

Vank managed to dance without moving his feet, waving his arms first one way, then the other. “They agreed to withdraw. True! Their prospectors, who thought they found gold, were mistaken in any case. ‘Profitless mine,’ they said.” Vank had to use Parl to quote them accurately. “No profit! No profit! Ghioz never move but for profit. The men will be gone. They promised to withdraw their huntsmen and break camp. Tonight!”

Only Horblikklak seemed downcast.

“Too easy!” he grunted, as he sent out more flank-guards, pointing and swatting his warriors into position. “Too many smiles. Too much promised.”

“I see,” Wistala said, opening her wings. Maybe she should take one more flight around the Fireblades as they entered the thickest part of the forest.

“One more!” Horblikklak interrupted. “Too big a pile of rock in thick-axled wagon, covered by tarp and guarded, in the center of camp. ‘Profitless mine,’ my dung!”

Chapter 3

“Tyr, you have won another victory,” the messenger from the Drakwatch reported, puffing the whole length of his sides. The stretched skin against his sides where his wings would soon emerge was swollen and cracked.

The Copper dragon, Tyr of the Lavadome RuGaard, Imperator of the Dragonfumes of the Lower World, Courses Wet and Dry, Sunned and Cavenighted, the Three Lines, Seven Hills, Grand Guardian of Egg and Hatchling, Scale and Song, Fiery Heritage and Winged Future, as that gassy firebladder NoSohoth liked to style him, reclined on a small projection overlooking the old sand-floored dueling arena. He dismissed two blighter thralls who’d been polishing his teeth.

The projection, once used to attach the ropes and pulleys thralls needed to extract a deceased loser from a duel—a duel in theory could be stopped at any time, but some dragons made it a point of honor to die rather than cry vanquished—was still being rendered fit for a Tyr. Thrall artisans, under direction from NoSohoth, had smoothed and saddled the stone and were slowly filling in etchwork of the pleasing laudi-like designs commemorating his victories in Bant and Anaea, and against the Dragonblade.

The Copper preferred to hold court in the old dueling pit. He’d killed the Dragonblade here, but happier was the memory of the dragons roaring in triumph as his hag-riders fell. The chamber yawned big enough to admit many dozens of dragons, and it meant less of a climb to the gardens at the top of Imperial Rock for dragons, and yes, even the occasional free thrall, who wished an audience.

He’d outlawed dueling to settle differences, which was just a way for dragons to determine which one was rich enough to hire the best Skotl duelist. Poor dragons had to do their own fighting, and more often than not they died.

At his hatching the Copper had come off worse in duel. His maimed left sii still gave him an awkward gait and an uneven frame owing to the overdeveloped shoulder of his right.

Now dragons were supposed to take their differences to the leading dragons of the Seven Hills. And if they couldn’t work it out between each other, they came to him and pleaded. It made for many a wearying day hearing them out and deciding which to favor or how to divide guilt.

Dueling still took place on the quiet, of course, beyond the river ring around the Lavadome, but he made sure his mate didn’t invite reputed duelists to any of the feasts atop Imperial Rock.

In compromise to the dignity of his rank, he had two golden perches added, flanking his saddle-shaped rock. Brightly colored griffaran with well-preened feathers and sharpened talon-extenders stared owlishly down on the sandpit. Though smaller than the dragons, they were quicker, with beaks strong enough to break a dragon’s neck and talons that ripped through scale. Griffaran could fly in spaces where heavy, big-winged dragons couldn’t hope to launch, like the river tunnels that allowed quick travel in the Lower World, and up through the mountainside cracks near the Lavadome.

The Copper gave a pleasant nod to the Drakwatch courier.

“I won?” the Copper asked. “I’ve conquered precious little this morning beyond from my tortoiseshell of hot kern.”

That brought a few polite chuckles from senior members of the three lines who idled about the sandpit. Some, like the rather dull red CuBellereth, were simply busyhaunches who liked to drop anecdotes about the Imperial Court at their home hills. Others, the blue CoTathanagar, for instance, engaged in office seeking, constantly putting forward relations for assignment.

Luckily dragons he respected and trusted also lounged nearby. Word had spread that good news was on its way. NoSohoth saw to it that messengers bearing good news trumpeted it to an audience. Bad news crept up the thrall passages to the anteroom off his sleeping-chamber.

The Copper burped as he listened to the messenger’s report. His kern wasn’t sitting right. He’d had nothing since last night but a little kern in blood pudding. The Copper wasn’t fond of the taste of the stuff, but dragons who lived long underground benefited from the grain. Usually it aided the digestion—there wasn’t a bullock so tough and stringy that it didn’t settle better when followed by a nice hot gruel of kern. Odd.

Poison? His cooks, dragon and thrall, had tasted of it right in front of him, and assisted him all through the meals to prevent them from running off and bringing it back up in some waste-chute.

The messenger was running on about another victory over the demen. Paskinix, the Deman-King, had requested an “accommodation in recognition of the change in circumstance.”

The Copper clacked his teeth good-humoredly. NoSohoth had probably coached the courier on his wordplay. Irascible old Paskinix, tough as a dug-in scale-tick, would have used blunter phrases. A canny warrior and formidable opponent, even in defeat he made a plea for peace sound like a demand.

“The old northeast passage lies open,” the courier continued. “The Star Tunnel echoed with the sound of your Aerial Host as they flew and broke the enemy. Now the Firemaids explore regions long-lost to dragonkind.”

At a mutter and a nod from NoSohoth, the messenger repeated his words, roaring out the news. The fierce noise elicited growls and stamps of approval that seemed to require a nod of acknowledgment from their Tyr.

Just so, the Copper thought. When he heard word of the size of the Star Tunnel, he asked HeBellereth if he thought the Aerial Host could be brought into action. Dragons could ferry elite human thralls about easily, or men could fight from dragonback.

“Captives?” the Copper asked.

“Ten claw-score or more and two of their generals. One general is wounded and seems likely to die.”

“Have them brought to the Lavadome. Paskinix will have to come to Imperial Rock if he wants them back.”

“HeBellereth sent them along behind me in those cockleshell boats of theirs, under beak and claw of the griffaran. They should be arriving at the river ring even now.”

“Thank you for such a complete account,” the Copper said, and the courier swelled.

“So large and dangerous a group of captives should be supervised,” NoFhyriticus, a scaleless gray Anklene who served as the court physician, said. “Demen have surrendered before, just to get spies or assassins inside the Lavadome.” The Copper liked having him around because he rarely spoke, but when he did it was something sensible.

“Perhaps my nephew SuLam—” CoTathanagar began.

“I’ll go meet them myself,” the Copper said, stretching. Maybe exercise would settle his stomach. It had been a hearty feast last night, three bullocks to commemorate Tyr FeHazathant’s ending of the civil wars and peace in the Lavadome. Perhaps the kern was an irresistible force meeting an immovable mass of roast hides. His mate, Nilrasha, Queen of Imperial Rock, called his selection of fried hides crass when he should be claiming the tyrloin.

“Offal fit for kitchen thralls and cave-mouth beggars,” she’d said, even after he told her that the taste brought back memories of his days in the Drakwatch caves. In some ways Nilrasha struck him as a regrettable queen, but she always spoke her mind. Few other dragons on the Imperial Rock could make that claim. The Copper thought Tyr FeHazathant’s Queen Tighlia, dead but no more forgotten than her besung mate, a model, at least in her public behavior. Nilrasha relished the glitter of her position more than its duties.

Though the thralls loved her. They called her Queen Ora, after an old nickname the blighters had given her during the fighting in Bant. It meant “lucky.” She liked to award thirty days’ rest from duties or relocation to the sunny Upholds to thralls who showed good judgment or skill or even a pleasing song, and she left punishment of lawbreakers to her mate.