The Copper would have liked to fly like that. His artificial wing joint allowed him to stay aloft and maneuver, but he was no aerialist.

Fortunately the wind of her landing dried his eyes.

Skotl. All brawn and no brains, Nilrasha thought to him. Don’t let a nice pair of wings make you do anything rash. SoRolatan is an important and influential dragon.

Mind-speech is a strange thing. The closer two dragons are, the better their communication link. Sometimes Nilrasha preempted his thoughts, but she was better at guarding hers. Whenever he probed to find out about his first mate, Halaflora, for example—

Ahh, the past is set. You’re Tyr, you need to be thinking about the future, as yet unformed.

“Name the Upholds, the dominant hominid race in each, its principal product for the Empire. You can really impress me by naming the Upholder as well,” the Copper said.

“Ha-errr,” she began, settling her wings in a way that made his hearts beat faster. “Bant, mostly blighters, produces fleshstock—sheep, I mean—and grain, the Upholder is . . . NiThonius. Far Anaea, humans, produces kern, the Upholder is . . . is . . . Ru—no, CuPinnatax ...”

If you’re really planning to sit through this, I’m going to go on to the river and have a bath, Nilrasha thought. But she made no move to abandon him in so public a manner.

“The Aerial Host could use you,” the Copper said, cutting her off as she mentioned that Yellowsand, to the southwest, offered only rare spices and herbs and a few jewels grudgingly extracted from the waste-elves there in return for horseflesh. “But remember, fly only at night, unless it’s an emergency or over the home mountains controlled by the griffaran. We aren’t ready for the surface yet.”

“And SoRolatan? His hoard-offering to my family?”

“I’ll see to it that it is replaced—within reason.”

You’ve made an enemy today, Nilrasha thought to him.

And also a friend. She’s young—she’ll be around longer.

Young dragonelles forget favors like clouds lose water, she thought back. Old dragons like SoRolatan hold grudges like dwarves keeping beard-light.

There were several castrated dragons in the Aerial Host, survivors from the brief but brutal reign of SiMevolant and his human supporters led by the Dragonblade. Though unable to produce heirs, they would still like having her around. And if she found some laudi-painted young flier with seed intact who sang his lifesong to her and managed to catch up on a courting flight . . . well, a few generations of eggs inheriting their flying skill would do the Empire equal good.

If SoRolatan made too much of a stink, he’d ask HeBellereth to send the dome-guard Aerial Host for endurance training over SoRolatan’s hilltop. Airborne dragons had to evacuate their bowels sometime.

He sent a message to HeBellereth, and the dragonelle practically licked his good sii clean with her tongue, bubbling gratitude like the old hot pool that had belonged to one of his predecessors.

If mutters arose from the spectators they took care that their Tyr did not hear them.

Nilrasha moved off toward the river ring.

A second messenger spotted his griffaran guard and corrected their course to the landing where the demen were held prisoner.

Of all the hominids, demen struck the Copper as the oddest. They looked like bits and pieces of other creatures fixed together with that liquid stone the dwarves used and men imitated. Bits of them about the shoulders and spine reminded him of scuttling pinchg-prawn with their carapaces enclosing tasty flesh. They had long, strong fingers, and toes for probing and gripping, and big eyes oddly set slowly blinking on either side of their pointed scabby heads. They had long, knobby-kneed legs that reminded him of frogs or toads, folding themselves neat as dragonwings against their sides when they sat. If a squatting demen closed his eyes you’d almost think him a stalagmite.

Which, he supposed, was the point.

They could squeeze into crevices one would think a snake couldn’t wriggle through too.

They were fast on their feet, though when panicked they shot in different directions, which, according to the reports he’d been hearing and sending on to the Anklenes to be recorded, was their one weakness in battle. He’d seen them working in the Lavadome often enough to know they could be cruel, especially to other races put under their supervision.

This assortment, bereft of their nets and crystal-tipped spears and slingstones that broke into ugly fragments in a wound, looked much the worse for their experiences. A deman was an emaciated-looking thing compared even to an elf, and these were thin as kern-stalks in a drought.

They squatted, mud-splattered and smelling of the river, chained or roped or weighted fixed to boat-bottom, half in the boats and half out and with that nasty thrall-dealer Sreeksrack—or so everyone called him. He had lost his honorable dragon name long ago—something having to do with a duel, Nilrasha said. He was a Copper as well, but of a bronzeish hue that reminded the Tyr of his father.

No one minded owning thralls, but the business of gathering and evaluating and culling them was best left to others.

Sreeksrack bobbed his head, trying to get his Tyr’s attention.

Captives taken in war belonged to the Tyr—though by tradition they were quickly sold, adding to the hoard of the Imperial Line. Vast sums moved in and out of the hoard overseen by NoSohoth. There were always coins rattling in NoSohoth’s gold-gizzard as they digested and turned to scale, but if a mouthful here and there kept so efficient a servant to the family line loyal, the Copper was willing to part with it.

Poor thralls. What must it be like to be rowed across the river ring in chains, nothing but toil to look forward to, even if it was under the splendid burning streaks above?

The waters of the river ring sagged, bordered by muck and sand. Must be the end of the dry season in the Upper World. He remembered it as a chaotic time during his service in Anaea. Men always went a little crazy then, perhaps from heat and thirst.

The Firemaid in charge of the captives bowed. “The prisoners from the deepest Star Tunnel holes. We finally found their lair. ’Twas in a grotto too tight for dragons. Your sister countermined, hiring dwarves.”

The dwarves must have thought it a fine deal, getting paid to help destroy their bitterest enemies.

What the Lavadome was to dragons, the Star Tunnel was to the demen in this part of the Lower World, or so he’d been told. It had been the work of years clearing it, and they’d lost dozens of dragons and even more dragonelles. Every time they thought they had won it, the demen opened some new portal and attacked from an unexpected quarter.

“This is but a token of the tally,” the Firemaid said. “Their leaders. The others follow, perhaps a thousand.”

A thousand! He heard Sreeksrack choke back a hungry yelp. A vast number in the Lower World, which was often as inhospitable as bare desert or cold mountaintop. Of course, the Star Tunnel had many exits to the surface. A few in his retinue licked their chops. There would probably be wounded and sick to eat. Every hill had a few clan recipes for deman. Their thin leg-flesh practically melted in butter.

Paskinix, no wonder you are willing to deal at last. It seems I have much of your army. In the darkest days of his youth in the snake-haunted bat caves he’d learned that the best way to kill a snake was to crush its head. No matter how powerful the coils of the body, without the head it was nothing but a meal.

The Empire had taken the demen body—and the head was no doubt wondering what to do with itself. At dreadful cost, but dragonkind now held as much of the Lower World as the great wizard Anklamere ever had. They wouldn’t have to worry about raids on the trade lines, and drakka and drakes would be freed up from the watch-posts.

The Upper World, soft and ripe in the sun as the sweet fruits brought down for the thralls and livestock, beckoned to his imagination.

He walked along the line of prisoners. Disarmed, sullen in defeat, they were marked as a fierce warrior race only by their carapace decor. They had bits of bone, dragonteeth, what looked like dwarf-skull and blighter-fang dug into or piercing the organic platework about their shoulders. Some had painted their battlescars, others filled an empty ocular cavity or torn-out ear with a baby griffaran beak. But appearances could be deceiving. These were war-chieftains who’d fought fire-breathing dragons a hundred times their weight to a standstill for years.

Seemed a shame to put such specimens to work herding cattle or shoveling dragon-waste.

Now would be the time to announce a grand victory feast. NoSohoth eyed him, subtly smacking his lips. Deman organmeat—especially the liver and kidneys—sharpened the eyesight and kept one clearheaded.

The Copper turned to face his procession and cleared his throat, feeling sluggish. They wouldn’t like the speech, but the sooner it was done with, the better. Then he could find a comfortable spot on the riverbank to sleep.

His first word turned into a shocked breath. Pairs of eyes widened and he heard a few gasps. Before he knew what had happened, he felt a flutter of feathers across his back and a deman-scream cut the riverbank.

Two griffaran rose into the air, one with the head and arm of a deman in its claws, the other gripping a leg. A jagged shard of crystal, long and slightly curved, spun as it fell. It broke into ugly barbs as it struck the ground just behind his bad sii.