“The Firemaidens took their share of honors,” a dazzling, golden-eyed drakka said as another licked the wounds about her sii and griff.

SiDrakkon stood and roared a victorious bellow that no doubt sent the rock-racks digging even deeper into the sand. “Now, Rugaard, now you may return to the Lavadome. Tell the mighty Tyr what has been accomplished in his name this night. But hurry back, for the feasting will be even greater when we strike their fortress from the depths of the very river they so arrogantly claim!”

No one but the departing Copper noticed NiThonius, who’d stayed back from the attack as well. He remained at the edge of the celebration, using his nose to help the Bant tribesmen gather spent arrows and dropped swords. He simply sighed quietly.

SiDrakkon roared after him: “Give your report to the Tyr, and tell my sister to keep her advice. Her snout’s in too many caves as it is.”

Chapter 16

The road back to the Lavadome was wearisome in several respects.

For a start, the king awarded them, through SiDrakkon, a rather broken-down and dismal donkey, who complained, in the simple words of the beast tongue, that he would be eaten as soon as the Copper grew hungry. For a while Rhea rode him, but he staggered and bellowed, so they left him with just carrying grain and dragon-smoked meat.

Rhea performed her scale-cleaning duties until her fingers bled from beneath her nails. She slept rather close to him. Fourfang, however, continually disappeared while they passed back south through Bant, especially when the Copper smelled tribal blighters around. He’d slip off quietly in the night, and come back smelling of scented oil.

“Where do you go nights, Fourfang?” the Copper asked one morning.

In response, the blighter made a motion of such obvious obscenity that the Copper almost scorched him from the waist down. The Copper wondered how many prominently toothed blighter litters would be born next season.

On their last day of travel the rains began. Blue-bottomed clouds boiled up out of the east and gathered, and water fell from the sky, first in a drizzle and then in such torrents it was pointless to seek shelter, so they simply squelched on through the mud to the next soggy camp.

The donkey complained that not only was he to be eaten, but he was going to be eaten wet and uncomfortable.

“The rains, at last,” the Firemaid guarding the underground entrance said. “You leave us so soon?” The rain had washed and brightened her scale.

“I’ll return with messages, I expect. I’ll offer you a gift of this donkey to remember me. I suggest you eat him; it’s the only way you’ll ever have any peace and quiet.”

The Firemaids kept a goodly supply of meat, gained hunting on the plains, and there was even a little fish pulled out of a stream that morning, for with the rain the fish were hurrying to mate and lay their eggs. The Copper ate the fish as soon as it was offered. If his time in the Lavadome lacked anything, it was a good piece of fish now and again.

The trek down the tunnel was long—fortunately there were few places one could get lost, and when in doubt the Copper simply smelled for the leavings of the flocks driven downtunnel. Once they met up with the dwarvish iron ruts it was simply a matter of following the lines down. Their trek had little to remember, save that Fourfang slept soundly each night with his head pillowed upon the Copper’s rump, and Rhea, lacking the warm sty provided by her fellow thralls, huddled against his leathery stomach. So they came again to the Lavadome with little doubt or danger. The deman boatman who carried them across was a gruesome specimen, and fondled Rhea’s sun-colored hair as they climbed in.

“Enough, you,” the Copper growled. The demen were useful enough in keeping order among the thralls, but he still found them loathsome. “Keep to your end of the boat.”

The deman and Fourfang exchanged looks. Fourfang licked his lips and showed his teeth.

The deman’s spines rose. “No brawling,” the Copper said, placing his tail between them.

The pens and dragon-holes of the Lavadome’s hills felt shrunken in scale now, after the horizon-stretching space and light of the Upper World. They had to rest only once, crossing easily on common paths, and instead of blue infinity overhead, they enjoyed the intricate beauty of the fire-streaked dome. He left Fourfang and Rhea on the lower entrance to the Imperial Resort. He would have liked to see how things were getting on in the training caves—though he’d been gone only two-score and five days it felt like years—but Tyr would need to hear about events in Bant.

He hurried up one of the steep, narrow back step-passages used by the thralls. He was still small enough to fit, and he could avoid some of the transverses leading to the garden level.

Thralls worked the Tyr’s Gardens, diverting trickles from the central pool and splashing water on the ferns and vines. One had a dirty joint shoved in his waistband, probably cast aside during a banquet and found in the underbrush, and guiltily dropped it.

Well, let him enjoy his find. “I’d boil it well if I were you. A joint can go a long way, made into soups,” he said. The thrall just blinked. “Go on; pick it up. You found it; you enjoy it.”

He met NoSohoth in the plaza before the Tyr’s outer entrance, eating a dish made of meat shredded into thin, stringlike strips and swimming in gravy, as a thrall poked around behind his crest, cleaning dirt and dead skin with a rag-wrapped stick. Saliva flooded the Copper’s mouth at the smell of the dragon’s breakfast.

“I’ll say this for you, Rugaard: You’re easy to identify at a distance. Your hop-walk is distinctive.”

“I bring news for the Tyr.”

NoSohoth took another tongueful of gravy. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t. SiDrakkon calls for three more dragons, I suppose.”

“My mate is sleeping,” Tighlia said, emerging from the Tyr’s cave. She moved rather stiffly.

Thralls exploded out of the corners of the plaza like a flight of startled birds, converging on the Tyr’s mate.

“Yes, some breakfast, just a little kern,” she said, looking from thrall to thrall. “No, no bath. Just some ointment for my joints. My shoulders again. Leafdrip’s formula and none other, now. Oh, leave off; the scale’s still lined from sleeping. It’ll smooth on its own.”

She shrugged off her attendants and took a long drink from Tyr’s trickle basin.

“Restless night again, glorious Queen?”

“Not a good turn to be had, NoSohoth.” She looked at the Copper. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Our newest courier has returned with news from Bant,” NoSohoth said.

“My mate’s lame little indulgence. Well, out with it.”

“I bring news for the Tyr himself,” the Copper said.

“Be off with all of you,” she said to the thralls. “You too, NoSohoth. See what’s keeping my kern.” She sidestepped toward the trickle spilling into the basin.

The Copper regretted to see the shredded meat in gravy go, but the hard eye of Tighlia made him forget his appetite.

“We can talk here, you. No one will overhear. Come closer; I’ve never bitten a drake in my life and I won’t start this morning. What news?”

“I’m the Tyr’s courier,” the Copper protested. He wondered if he should relay her brother’s exact words.

“Don’t question me; it’s not your place. FeHazathant needs twice the sleep that he gets. I’m eager to hear every detail of my brother, and you have my promise that the Tyr will hear your report.”

“I’m under instructions—”

She interrupted in a quiet voice. “You would be wise to obey me. I’ve given my word: Tyr will hear your message. Will you offer insult to me by disbelief? There is no shortage of champions who will duel to defend my honor.”

“Yes, great Queen. Our journey—”

“Stomp the journey. How go things in Bant?”

“They are hard-pressed by the Ghi men. Two of their river valleys are lost. Their forces have been defeated, scattered, and discouraged.”

“What has my brother done to retrieve the situation, or is the Uphold lost?”

“SiDrakkon won a victory against the Ghi men. He destroyed a fortification before it could be completed, with small loss.”

“Ninny! You should have been shouting that from the moment you passed into the dome. A victory! FeHazathant must hear of this.” She rounded on a kitchen thrall hurrying up with a steaming bowl of milky, yellow kern. “You there! Let’s have a skewer of steaks for the Tyr’s breakfast, and if they’re not still sputtering from the fire you’ll be turning on the next spit.”

Within a dwarf-hour the court was roused and the Tyr came into the plaza to hear the story. When the Copper repeated his news and told of the battle, all the Imperial line began to twitter.

“Well, that is good news,” NoSohoth said when Tighlia nudged him. “A roar for SiDrakkon.”

The dragons roared, but to the Copper it sounded half-lunged.

The Tyr nodded. “Well, if it’s begun, at least it’s begun well. But open war…the Ghi men are strong and numerous and craft-wise. What’s the spirit of the warriors in Bant?”